Apr
From WAHINE previous page
Knowles initially stayed put when the order to abandon ship was given, and said he felt strangely detached as he watched the first lifeboats pulling away. When the time came to get off himself – he was one of the last to go – he simply took off his louboutins and stepped into the water. He subsequently clambered, with some difficulty, aboard a lifeboat that had stayed close to the ship to pick up those in the water.
THUS far at the seminar, accounts of what happened to the Wahine accorded with the official record. It was lawyer John Stevenson, of Izard Weston, who challenged the authorised version.
Though the inquiry heard conflicting evidence, the generally accepted account of the sinking is that the ship, driven by massive waves, violently sheered to port coming into the harbour and refused to respond to the helm. This happened at 6.15am.
Unsure of the ship’s position,manolo blahnik shoes, Captain Robertson tried to steer it back into the open sea and while doing so, struck the southernmost rocks of the ysl boots at 6.41. The ship lost its starboard propeller and both engines failed, leaving it totally disabled.
The Wahine, by now facing backwards, subsequently drifted northward into the harbour, sustaining further damage against the rocks of Barrett Reef before miraculously being carried clear of the jagged tip of Point Dorset and on to Steeple Rock, where its anchors finally held.
Stevenson, who as a young lawyer represented the now-defunct Wellington Harbour Board at the inquiry, has constructed an alternative scenario which he stresses is entirely a personal view, based largely on engine room tapes.
He postulates that after the sudden violent broach to port coming into the harbour, Robertson turned sharply to starboard to steer away from Barrett Reef. The ship was now heading directly for the Pencarrow (eastern) shore.
To get out of that position, Stevenson theorises, Robertson then executed a complete turn to port so that the ship was heading back out to sea. Then, having decided to make a second attempt to enter the harbour,blahnik, he turned back but miscalculated his position in the vile weather and came in on the wrong (western) side of Barrett Reef.
When the weather momentarily cleared, Stevenson suggests, the master realised his error and tried to reverse. It was only then, according to Stevenson, that he struck the louboutin shoe.
The key difference between Stevenson’s scenario and that of the inquiry is that whereas the official report had the Wahine out of control from the moment of the first broach, Stevenson believes the ship continued to manoeuvre under power for some time.
Related topics article:
- christian shoes Dan Synge tracks down shoes that can let your feet breathe in the heat
- louboutin Softly, softly tilt at US market
- christian louboutin Reef Mall celebrates first ann