Tod & Macgregor Shiplist

Notes:

          One of the best known steamers in Australia and New Zealand was the Penguin, of 824 tons. She wbs built in 1864 and ran between Glasgow and Liverpool for some years, until acquired by the U.S.S.Co. in 1S80, who placed her in the coastal trade. For a time she ran from Melbourne to Tasmania, and again traded in New Zealand, where she met with a disastrous end on 12th February 1909.

          The Penguin was en route from Picton to Wellington ; a rough sea was raging and the night very hazy, but there was nothing unusual to suspect an approaching disaster, for the vessel had navigated the locality innumerable times and endured the storms so prevalent in the Cook Strait. Suddenly, she struck Tom's Rock, near Cape Terawhiti, and commenced to sink.

          Several of the boats were launched, and one of these, filled with women and children, was smashed against the sides of the doomed vessel and the occupants thrown into the sea and drowned. A number of passengers and crew took to the rafts, and, although these were overturned, owing to the heavy sea, they managed to cling to the rafts and were saved.

          The captain was the last person to leave the ship, and as the vessel sank he swam to an upturned boat and landed on shore with it. In the morning the beach in the vicinity was strewn with wreckage and cargo, and about fifty bodies of the passengers and crew were washed ashore. Altogether fifty-eight lost their lives, and those fortunate enough to be saved suffered by being buffeted by the breakers.

[Australian Steamships, Dickson Gregory]