Huia Settlers Museum - Wreck of the Orpheus

Huia Settlers Museum - Wreck of the Orpheus
By James Littlewood

There are several names for the harbour Manukau, and each has its story. It’s also been known as Nga tai a Rakataura - the tidal currents of Rakataura, this being the tohunga or priest of the waka Tainui. Another is Te Manukanuka a Hoturoa - the troublesome waters of Hoturoa, who skippered the same waka. Both these names reflect the treacherous nature of the Manukau.

And treacherously tidal it most certainly is. Its strong currents result from its basic geography, hundreds of square miles of harbour surge through the narrow heads, barely a kilometre wide, on every tide. As if this swirling torrent isn’t bad enough, just beyond the harbour entrance lies the infamous Manukau bar - a massive pile of sand washing about just under the surface, creating wild breakers several kilometres out to sea.

Take a look at the chart.
Roughly due west of the harbour entrance is an area both bleak and blank, with no depth soundings at all, but just a single ominous clause: “depths less than 10 metres will be encountered” it says. Surrounding this massive no-go zone are the northern bank, the southern bank and the western shoals, whose very names are fearsome to mariners. On these patches, the depth reduces to as little as five and a half metres.

And that is slightly less than the total draft of The Orpheus, an English naval ship that discovered these shallows the hard way on February 7, 1863. There were several easier ways to discover them. For instance, Captain Burton of the Orpheus could have availed himself of an up-to-date chart. The one he had was almost ten years old. Meanwhile, the Manukau bar is an agile thing.

Or the Colonial Office and the British Admiralty could both have responded to regular messages that the signalling system on Paratutae Island at Whatipu was in dire need of an extensive upgrade.

Or the captain could have been a nice guy. The evidence supplied by the crew is that he was aloof and resistant to much in the way of chit chat. Had he been more approachable, the one person on board who’d already helmed a vessel successfully through the same nasty patch of water might have been listened to.

Maybe Burton was distracted by his commander, Commodore William Farquharson Burnett, who was also on board. While the two officers pondered their obsolete charts, one Frederick Butler was imprisoned below decks for desertion, awaiting his court martial. Some years earlier, Butler was a quartermaster on another vessel that had entered the Manukau on two separate occasions. Peering through his porthole in the brig, he could see the ship was on too southerly a course, and begged his captors to release him or at least relay his knowledge to the bridge. By the time he talked them into it, it was all too late. Reportedly, he took one look at the chart and yelled “But it’s the wrong one!”. Burnett eventually ordered the boat to be turned, at which point the engines failed (steam engines still being relatively new and tricky), the sails filled with wind in prevailing westerlies and the ship drove high and hard onto the bar.

Or Governor Grey could maybe have not been plundering the lives and the lands of the people of the North Island. As he was, The Orpheus was coming to help him, bearing military supplies and personnel. Burnett was in such a hurry to assist Grey in dispossessing Maori, he cancelled his initial plan to round Cape Reinga and approach Auckland via the Waitemata, and instead tried his tragic shortcut to Onehunga via the Manukau.

Or the British authorities could have upgraded the signalling facilities. For several years prior, the Manukau harbour master, Captain Thomas Wing, had been writing to the colonial offices in London, urgently requesting better resources. His full time signal operator had already quit, on account of inadequate wages. Wing’s son helped out where he could, but they lacked even an adequate telescope. Had he been properly equipped, he would have noticed a distress signal hoisted in The Orpheus’s rigging. Without having seen this, and not being sure whether it was afloat or not, he directed an outgoing ship away from the imperilled Orpheus, at the very moment that assistance would have been of most use.

As the hours rolled on, the tide changed and The Orpheus became increasingly exposed to the devastating actions of wind, waves and sand. As it slowly came apart, the crew took to the rigging. Some terminated their own misery, while others hung on either till they succumbed to fatigue, or the spars they clung to did. In those days, hardly any English sailors could swim.

Some lifeboats were launched, but only one made it to shore. The precipitous angle of the ship, the turbulent water and the hostile coast imperilled the entire operation: launching, navigating and landing ashore were all nearly impossible.

One hundred and eighty nine lives were lost. It remains New Zealand’s worst maritime disaster on record. Bodies were washed ashore for years to come and for miles around, from Huia, to Whatipu and North Piha. A short mast section - but of massive girth - was spotted on numerous occasions, until it eventually washed up in the distant northern harbour of Kaipara.

Some say it’s utu. The Orpheus’s mission was not a charitable one. It was there to support two other military vessels that themselves were part of Governor George Grey’svicious and sustained attack on the mana whenua of Te Ika a Maui, and his theft of their land.

At the very heart of the Manukau on Puketutu, close to the sacred and - today - troubled whenua of Ihumatao, with a clear view of the heads, was an ancient and deeply revered puriri tree, itself a longstanding navigation marker to the people who’d been voyaging over both the Manukau and its bar for centuries prior. This was the land on which the crew of the Tainui made their first home. On the day before The Orpheus’s fateful attempt, a colonist took to this tree with an axe, either in ignorance, arrogance or both.

You can take what you like from that. But leaving aside the thorny notion of trans-cultural retribution, The Orpheus was always a disaster waiting to happen. Had there not been a war on; had the commander not been in a blind rush; had the officers on board paid heed to the desperate signalling on shore; had the one person on board who could help have been listened to; had the British authorities responded to the colonial request for adequate resources… well, that’s an awful lot of things to be different. Ultimately, the only people who destroyed The Orpheus were the people in charge of it, the people who owned it, and the people who supplied its bloody purpose.

The tiny Huia Museum is well worth a visit. Most of its collection consists of items washed ashore. The mast section is there. Various instruments of war, bits of rigging, some personal effects. And there’s an anonymous grave site nearby, but it might pay to check whether that falls within the rahui or not.

There are several names for the harbour Manukau, and each has its story.

Image Credit: Wreck of HMS Orpheus, Illustrated London News, 1863 (ATL, PUBL-0033-1863-437), Richard Brydges Beechey (1808 - 1895) - Painting owner P.A. Edmiston Trust Collection, New Zealand Maritime Museum, and Huia Museum