TEV Wahine

Common card · No. 384006

TEV Wahine was a twin-screw, turbo-electric, roll-on/roll-off passenger ferry. Ordered in 1964, the vessel was built by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, in Govan, Glasgow, Scotland for the Union Steam Ship Company's Wellington-Lyttelton Steamer Express Service in New Zealand. The Wahine began transporting passengers on day and overnight trips on New Zealand's inter-island route between the ports of Wellington and Lyttelton in 1966. The Wahine was permitted to carry a maximum of 1,100 passengers on day trips, or 927 berthed passengers on overnight trips. On 10 April 1968, near the end of a routine northbound overnight crossing from Lyttelton, Wahine was caught in a fierce storm stirred by tropical cyclone Giselle. She ran aground on Barrett Reef, then drifted and capsized and sank in the shallow waters near Steeple Rock at the mouth of Wellington Harbour. Of the 734 people on board, 51 people died from drowning, exposure to the elements, or from injuries sustained in...

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