PROGRESS

On 18 January 1879, Sam Hyne sailed from Gravesend, London as Master of the 210-ton brigantine Progress (built at Prince Edward Island, Canada) on its delivery voyage to new owners in Auckland, via Fremantle and Adelaide. The Progress arrived at Fremantle in early May 1879, Adelaide in July 1879 and Auckland in August 1879. After delivery of the Progress to its new owners GW Owen & Co in Auckland, Sam remained as captain and company agent on at least two more voyages to Sydney, then on the New Zealand coastal trade, shipping timber between Auckland, Kaipara and Dunedin. It was while on one of these coastal voyages that ship and crew were fully tested and Sam must have wondered whether he would ever see his family on the other side of the world again. On the night of 23 January 1880, Sam’s ship Progress, in ballast, was driven ashore in Palliser Bay (east of Wellington) during a gale and wrecked. All crew were saved. As captain, Sam stayed with the wreck for the next week until salvage operations could be got underway by the Auckland owners. A group of sightseers who visited the beach a couple of days later were reported as commenting: ‘The captain was very kind offering [us] tea, coffee and spirits. He is a jolly man, and we wish him better luck in the future.’ A brief inquiry was held and deemed to be an unavoidable accident. By early February 1880, Sam and crew returned to Auckland onboard SS Rangatira (itself to be wrecked a few months later along the NZ coast).