No Safe Harbour - David Hill

Published by Mallinson Rendel Publishers Ltd: Wellington, NZ, 2003.

I'm now at the point in the year where I'm reading with an eye towards what I might be teaching next year. As I have a year 9 class in 2021 (I haven't taught one of those yet) I'm looking through some of the books on offer in the English Department for that year level.

No Safe Harbour is one of those. It stars Stuart and Sandra, twins who have been in Christchurch for their Grandad's funeral and are now heading home via ferry to Wellington. The only problem is that this is April 1968, and the ferry in question is the Wahine. 

Any New Zealander who has some knowledge of our own history will likely have heard of the Wahine, and be aware that it ran aground on Barrett Reef in Wellington Harbour during an unexpectedly severe storm, and then sank. This book tells that story through the eyes of Stuart. 

Told in first person, we are limited to understanding what Stuart understands, and although he is highly observant (at points he watches the bridge and gets some idea of what the captain and crew are going through) this also means that some of the reasons for the disaster are a little vague. Reaching the end of the book, I read through the Historical Notes section at the back (fairly light-weight as this is a book primarily aimed at older children) and got more understanding from that than I had previously gained from the book itself.

Having a whole book (even a short one) that is based around a single event is something I found quite different. The chapters are short and in a lot of them not really much happens, but we just are taken closer to the moment of disaster. Then the disaster happens and the book 'picks up' a little.

It is interesting to read about a New Zealand disaster. The book itself is ok.

At this point I'm not anticipating I'll study this one with my class next year.

Completed 28 November 2020.


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