Dundonald (ship)

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The Dundonald was a four masted barque of 2205 tons which was launched in Belfast in 1891. After setting sail from Sydney, Australia on the 17th of February 1907, bound for Falmouth with a cargo of wheat, she was forced onto rocks during a squall and sank on March 7th on the west of Disappointment Island, five miles north west of the Auckland Islands, 180 miles south of New Zealand [1].

16 members of the 28 crew managed to escape the wreck to shore, among the twelve who drowned were the Captain, J.T. Thorburn, and his son. One man, the mate Jabez Peters, died of exposure on the 25th of March 1907, eighteen days after the disaster. He was buried in the sands but in November 1907 his body was exhumed by members of the crew of the Hinemoa crew and reinterred at the Hardwicke cemetery at Port Ross, in Erebus cove, in the Auckland Islands. His father and brother were also lost at sea in New Zealand waters.

The survivors lived for seven months on Disappointment Island, a barren outcrop three miles long and two miles wide. They kept the same fire burning, burrowed into the ground for shelter and improvised clothes and tools from materials salvaged from the wreck or from the seals and trees they found on the island. They then managed to build coracles from ship's canvas and after several false starts managed to cross the five mile strait to Auckland Island where after scaling a two hundred foot cliff, they found a food depot [2]. They were eventually rescued by a New Zealand Government steamer, the Hinemoa.

[edit] Additional Sources

The Wreck of the Dundonald by Albert Roberts. Recorded in 1976. 44"

Last of the Windjammers, Vol. 2, by Basil Lubbock.

The Otago Witness carried photos of the survivors on December . 18 1907.

The Annual Dog Watch No. 16 [1959] Wreck of the Dundonald by Capt. W.E. Eglen

The Castaways of Disappointment Island by the Rev. Herbert Escott-Inman.