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Official Number
87891 |
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Official Number
87891 |
Like the Grassendale, the Garston was built by Robert Williamson and Son at Workington for the Liverpool shipping firm of R.W.Leyland & Co. She was a full-rigged ship, launched in September 1883.
Whilst on passage bound for San Francisco from Newcastle, NSW, the Garston was wrecked on a reef three miles off Starbuck Island, on the 17th July 1889. The ship's crew abandoned her, taking to the two lifeboats and the captain's gig. A passing steamship rescued the men from both lifeboats, but the master and eight others in the gig were only saved after 23 days at sea, during which they had sailed 2000 miles to Wallis Island (see Source 1).
From the New York Times, 17th September 1889, page 5SAVED JUST IN TIME
AUCKLAND, Sept.16.-The Tonga steamer Wainui has brought to this port the Captain and crew of the British ship Garston, Capt.Davies, from Sydney, N.S.W., for San Francisco, which foundered in mid-ocean. The ship-wrecked sailors were twenty-two days in an open boat without food or water. On the twenty-second day the men, driven to desperation by hunger and thirst, decided that one of their number must be sacrificed to save the lives of the others. They were casting lots to see who should be the victim, when they sighted Wallis Island. The natives of the island assisted the exhausted men to land, and treated them in the kindest manner. A mission boat took them to Tonga.
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Sources :
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