Matakana: 45ft Tasman Bay Cutter

The End of Matakana

But on the 9^th November 1911 Matakana met her end.  She was traveling from Nelson to Puponga.  The boat was struck by bad weather seven miles east of Riwaka in Tasman Bay.  The Nelson Mail described the rain as falling in sheets and “lighting flashed and thunder rolled around the heavens”.  With the weather reducing visibility the boat was hit by a squall, capsized and sunk.   The crew including the skipper Captain R. G. Tregidga and his assistant Alan McNabb made it to shore in their battered dinghy but Matakana was a total loss.

The Nelson Mail interviewed Captain R. G. Tregidga about what happened to them. Tregidga tells of the boat capsizing, of trying to get the dinghy for him and McNabb and getting caught underneath the hull.  He recalls McNabb helping pull him on to the hull where they held on in the rough seas contemplating their situation whilst the dinghy was trapped underneath the boat. 

They sat on the hull for an hour and a half and just as they began to abandon hope the dinghy floated up from underneath the hull upside down. With McNabb holding onto him Tregidga got in the water and reached for the dinghy.  He managed to get it alongside the hull, flipped it the right way round and then dragged in onto the cutter to empty out. 

The dingy had five holes so when they launched it in the sea it started to sink even with them baling the water out with their hands. So they dragged the dinghy on to the bottom of the cutter and got to work trying to stop the holes with bits of Tregidga’s waistcoat and the dinghy’s lining. 

Once they were ready to go they got back in the dinghy and set off for Motueka.  Luckily a cartridge box floated to the surface as they set off and they retrieved it.  Tregidga believes this box saved their lives as the dinghy needed bailing constantly as it filled with a foot of water every quarter of an hour.  They used the cartridge box to bail the water and rowed with two 4ft 6 inch battens.  It took them two and half hours but they made it to Motueka wharf at 1pm utterly exhausted and hungry.