TEV Wahine

TEV Wahine was a dual screw, turbo-electric, roll-on/roll-off passenger and vehicle ferry of the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand. She was started on at the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Govan, Scotland in 1965 and worked the New Zealand inter-island way between Wellington and Lyttelton from 1966. In an unusual storm on 10 April 1968 she foundered on Barrett Reef and overturned near Steeple Rock at the mouth of Wellington Harbor. Of the 610 passengers and 123 crew on board, 53 were dead.

The collapse of the Wahine is one of the well known maritime tragedies in New Zealand’s history, though there have been worse, with far greater loss of life.