Good Weather for Sinking:

Adverse weather is not responsible for all maritime tragedies . In fact, benign conditions lessened the scale of the tragedy when the steamer Wimmera, bound for Sydney, struck a mine 18 miles north of Cape Maria Van Dieman before dawn on 26 June 1918. Moonlight and relatively smooth seas allowed most of the 151 people on board to get away in the ships boats while the moderate northerly wind blew the boats towards land. Only 26 lives were lost. The mine had been laid by the German raider Wolf, which operated in New Zealand waters for some months.

History repeated during the Second World War when the liner Niagara, en-route from Auckland to Vancouver struck a mine east of Bream Head around midnight on 19 June 1940. Fortunately, the wind was light and the sea calm and all 349 passengers and crew managed to get safely into life boats in the hour it took the ship to sink. The only casualty was the ship’s cat that jumped back on board before the lifeboat could pull away.The mine had been laid by the German auxiliary Cruiser Orion just 6 days before.