KEY POINTS:
Christchurch woman Helen Louisson believes a change of clothing probably saved her life during the hours she spent battling for survival in churning, icy waters as flotsam from the stricken Wahine.
Mrs Louisson, now 88, was returning to her Wairarapa home after an Easter weekend conference in Christchurch and opted to take the interisland ferry from Lyttelton instead of flying, purely for convenience.
On arrival in Wellington, she'd planned to walk off the ferry and across to Wellington Railway Station to connect with a railcar to Masterton.
Instead, Mrs Louisson was to arrive at the station much later that day - in shock as a bedraggled survivor from the Wahine tragedy.
Fifty-three people are now officially recorded as having lost their lives as a result of the Wahine striking rocks at Barrett Reef, near the entrance to Wellington Harbour, and foundering on April 10, 1968.
Mrs Louisson will be in Wellington tomorrow for the 40th commemoration of the tragedy at the Museum of Wellington City and Sea, where an updated roll of victims is to be unveiled.
One of the last passengers to leave the doomed ship, she remembers just treading water to survive as she was thrown around in mountainous seas.
She recalls a couple of burly sailors "encouraging" remaining passengers to get into the water.
The strident command "jump, lady jump!" was bellowed more in frustration than anger, Mrs Louisson told NZPA, "just to get people moving".
"They didn't shove me off - but near enough."
Awakened with a cup of tea in her cabin about 5am that day, Mrs Louisson said she'd told the stewardess quite sharply that she hadn't expected to be woken so early.
"She said: 'It's very rough and we mightn't get around later on'.
"With that, there was a great big lurch and the cup of tea went across the floor."
Much later, after the vessel grounded on rocks and she'd heard the call for passengers to go to the ship's emergency muster stations, Mrs Louisson said, she thought it might be cold on deck. She'd boarded the ferry wearing a linen suit for the overnight trip, but had packed a heavier change of clothes.
"So I fished out my woollen suit ... my tweed suit," she said.
"I feel that might have saved my life."
The lifejacket she was wearing kept her head above water as she plunged from peak to trough in huge waves, and the woollen suit helped her retain body heat in freezing conditions.
She hadn't expected to have to leap into the sea, but all the lifeboats that could be launched were already in the water and there were no liferafts left.
"When they told us to jump ... I suppose they were inexperienced, but they'd thrown out the rubber rafts when all the lifeboats had gone."
In the ferocious winds, Mrs Louisson said, the self-inflating liferafts "just went sailing away, and nobody could get into them."
In the water, survival instinct focussed her thoughts on husband John and her family.
"And I was thinking rather selfishly, I suppose, of keeping my mouth shut in the water and hopefully being picked up."
Mrs Louisson said she was alone while being tossed around in the sea for almost two hours. Swept across the harbour, she could hear breakers roaring on the dangerous, rock-strewn Eastbourne coast of Wellington Harbour, then voices shouting.
"I heard someone saying `we're too close, we're too close' and then someone said `there's one' and that was me."
Mrs Louisson said she was hauled out of the sea "in a very undignified manner" - upside down - by a rescue boat crewman using a boat hook.
She was grateful to be alive and out of the sea despite being shoved into the little boat's toilet area dazed and "wondering why I was here" as the crew navigated a safe passage through foaming waters.
Mrs Louisson said she couldn't remember being frightened during her survival ordeal and now realises she must have been in shock.
The "best part," she said, was that she was travelling alone and "not having to worry about having children with you and having to look after them".
"I remember thinking how awful it must have been for them."
Watching a recent television documentary about the Wahine tragedy, Mrs Louisson said she found herself in tears.
"It did make me realise I was probably in more shock than it seemed at the time."
She said she can't recall witnessing anything disturbing during her time in the water.
"I didn't realise until later that people actually drowned," she said. 'I can't say I saw anything terrible."
Nor can the sprightly octogenarian say the tragedy ever really affected her physically or emotionally.
It didn't put her off travel or enjoying the sea. Though she said her late husband, John, used to tell her she'd sometimes call out in her sleep.
- NZPA
