Shipwreck: HMS Orpheus
On 7 February, 1863, the HMS Orpheus sailing from Sydney was
only miles from Onehunga, her destination port in Auckland. On
board were 259 men, many of them British soldiers heading for the
Waikato land wars.
The harbour bar at the head of the Manukau Harbour is a
sandbank built up by the movement of the waves. Crossing it has to
be done at the right time, when the tide is high enough and the
water over the bar deep enough for ship to pass safely.
The signalman at the signal station on Paratutai Island
signalled the Orpheus to "take the bar" (across the harbour mouth)
at about 11:00 am when the tide was right. Weather conditions were
fine and sunny. The signalman watched the Orpheus take a course too
far to the south of the bar to cross it safely and tried to signal
the ship to keep northward, but it did not change course.
On board a seaman with experience of the harbour realised the
ship was taking the wrong course. Alarmed, he went to the master of
the ship and pointed out the correct course on the chart. Before
the turn could be made the Orpheus struck the sandbar, burying the
nose of the ship. The engines seized and gradually the Orpheus
slipped further over on to her side. A south-westerly wind had
sprung up and the waves were growing stronger.
A steamer had just been piloted out of the harbour when the
skipper saw the Orpheus out by the bar. At first he did not realise
that it was in difficulties until they met two smaller boats from
the Orpheus. Another boat from the Orpheus had been lost when it
was lowered over the side. Most of the 40 men on board were drowned
or crushed in the wreck.
Meanwhile the men remaining on the Orpheus had climbed the
rigging in an attempt to stay clear of the waves which were
breaking over the ship halfway up the mast. Some tried to climb
forward to the bowsprit and jump into the water there but many fell
to the deck making the attempt. Smaller boats from the steamer
moved in around the Orpheus to rescue survivors from the
sea.
About 6 o'clock in the evening Commodore Burnett, who was in
the mizzen-rigging, hailed the men, asked them to pray to God, and
said he would be the last to leave the ship. Between 8 and 8:30 pm
the masts fell into the sea, taking with them over 100 men who had
climbed the rigging – it was later reported that the crew had acted
with ‘heroic resignation’.
The mainmast was the first to go over the side. As their mast
was falling, the men clinging to the yards and rigging gave three
heart-rending farewell cheers, knowing they were about to die. The
cheers were answered by the men on the other masts, and next moment
the gallant sailors were vainly struggling for their lives. The
foremast soon followed, and then the mizzenmast gave way and
crashed into the surf. The mizzentop fell on Commodore Burnett and
partly stunned him, and he was drowned.
Further attempts to save the drowning men were made at night
by the light of the moon, but by dawn only the stumps of the masts
and pieces of the deck remained visible. There were only 70
survivors.
189 men died. This remains the greatest loss of life in any
New Zealand shipping disaster.
For anyone interested in finding out more of the story we would
recommend visiting the following places:
The remains of a section of the Orpheus’ main mast can be seen
outside the Huia Settlers Museum. It was recovered from the Kaipara
Harbour entrance in 1991, after being sighted periodically in the
intervening 121 years.
Sp8sm8’s cache ‘View of the Bar’ (GC1J4YJ) takes you to a lookout
platform with an incredible view of the Manukau Bar where the
Orpheus was wrecked.
Tramper2’s cache ‘H.M.S. Orpheus’ (GCYE5H) leads you to a small
reserve in Cornwallis where some of the crew of the Orpheus are
buried.
Our cache is a 600ml screwtop container with a camoed lid. On
launching it contained logbook and pencil and a selection of small
trading goods. The cache should be accessible at all but the
highest of tides. For dry feet we recommend you avoid an hour
either side of high tide. Please rehide the cache exactly as you
found it.