Nearly 40 years after the sinking of the inter-island passenger ferry Wahine on April 10, 1968, a group of ageing survivors stepped on to the lush grass at the Queenstown Events Centre for the 13th Golden Oldies World Cricket Festival in Queenstown.
All 13 members of the ‘‘Lincoln Wahines'' cricket team taking part in yesterday's match were members of the original Lincoln University first XI travelling on the Wahine on the day of the disaster.
The squad was going to Palmerston North to take part in that year's Universities Easter Tournament, but instead found themselves scrambling into lifeboats and rafts as the vessel foundered in heavy seas as it entered Wellington Harbour.
Yesterday's match - on the first day of the cricket festival - was just the fifth time the team had re-formed since 1968, and was likely to be the last, team captain Kerry Armstrong (62) said.
Age was catching up with many of the members, who were in their 20s at the time of the disaster but were now aged between 59 and 63, he said.
However, despite their advancing years, their memories of the Wahine experience remained as vivid as ever, Mr Armstrong said.
He recalled climbing into a rubber life raft only for it to be swamped by a ‘‘huge'' wave, leaving him alone in the violent seas for 45 minutes. He managed to swim to shore, only to be washed against rocks and back into the surf several times.
A policeman and one of his teammates, already safely ashore, eventually waded in to help pull him on to the beach.
Another survivor, John Blatchford (60), of Christchurch, said he could still remember the grinding noise as the Wahine's hull struck Barrett's Reef early in the morning.
‘‘There was a loud noise like steel on steel, but it was actually steel on rock,'' he said.
He decided to climb over the ship's port-side railing - farthest away from the water - as the ship's list increased in the afternoon, having watched panicked passengers slipping and falling across the treacherous decks.
‘‘When I first got up to the port side I thought ‘I must be dreaming'. I really did,'' he said.
‘‘With a 35-degree list, people were just falling down the alleyways. It was time to go.'' He clambered around the port side to the ship's stern and down to the water, and was able to step off straight into a lifeboat.
The lifeboat carried 33 passengers, including three other members of the Lincoln first XI, through 6m swells to safety, but it was not until the next day that Mr Blatchford learned all his teammates were safe.
‘‘That was great,'' he said.
‘‘That was the best news you could really get.''
Mr Armstrong, who travelled from Australia for the festival, said yesterday that the events of the dramatic day in 1968 had helped bond his team together.
The team's infrequent reunions were a chance to catch up and swap stories.
‘‘We are very close as a group and we very much enjoy each other's association,'' he said.
The team had previously reformed for matches on the disaster's 25th and 30th anniversaries, as well as the Golden Oldies tournament in Rotorua in 2000, and Lincoln University's 125th anniversary in 2003
For the record, yesterday's match ended in defeat for the Wahines. Their opponents, the Karaka Stallions, successfully chased down the Wahines' score of 160 in 40 overs, winning with a four in the final over.
Not that it seemed to matter for Mr Armstrong and his smiling teammates as they toasted their health with a beer.
