Description
Shipwrecks litter the coasts and reefs of New Zealand. In the last 200 years over 2500 have been fatally wrecked on our shores, sometimes with horrific loss of life. Many more have been salvaged only after epic struggle.
Historian Gavin McLean documented these tragedies and visited many of the wrecks over years of research. In Shipwrecked he explores some of the iconic disasters that wrote themselves into national history – the Orpheus, General Grant, Tararua, Wahine and Mikhail Lermontov – along with lesser-known wrecks of ordinary , everyday vessels, their ends all devastating no matter the scale.
Shipwrecked is a story of terrifying storms, inhospitable coastlines, human error, the malicious hand of fate, and courtroom dramas. It is also testimony to courage, endurance and self-sacrifice, such as that of the stewardesses on the Wairarapa who saw to the needs of the passengers with little thought for their own safety.
Disasters at sea are no longer the regular occurrence that led to drowning better known as ‘The New Zealand Death’, yet recent wrecks like the Rena show that perils persist. Concluding chapters show authorities and sailors have responded to the challenge of making our coasts safe, a quest that continues in the era of GPS and satellites.
Before his untimely death in 2019, Gavin McLean had been revising his previous histories of New Zealand maritime disasters for this project. Edited for publication by historian Kynan Gentry, Shipwrecked provides the definitive history of the subject.
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