The very first European attempt to navigate through these narrows was a near disaster.
The alternative is to go around D’Urville Island and through heavy cross seas.
A Rissos dolphin, the kind Pelorus Jack was of.
After the incident, d’Urville suggested that no one should attempt to navigate French Pass except in extreme.
No, ships did not become more navigable, neither did sailors become more skillful.
The French Pass remained as ferocious and as perilous as ever.
Pelorus Jack
A rare photograph of Pelorus Jack by Edgar Warwick.
Pelorus Jack was a Rissos dolphin (Grampus griseus), thats very rarely seen in New Zealand waters.
Pelorus Jack then proceeded to guide the ship through the narrow channel staying alongside the ship for 12 hours.
And for years thereafter, he safely guided almost every ship that came by.
Jack did not like wooden hulled ships or sailing vessels, but fast-moving steel-hulled steamers attracted him.
Photographed by A. Pitt.
In 1904, a passenger aboard theSS Penguinpulled out a gun and tried to shoot Pelorus Jack.
Five years later, theSS Penguinstruck rocks and sunk taking 75 passengers to their watery grave.
It was New Zealand’s worst maritime disaster of the 20th century.
Over the years Jacks fame grew and many passengers sailed the Nelson/Wellington route just to see him.
This included well-known figures such as American writer Mark Twain and English author Frank T. Bullen.
One tourist wrote a letter to theLondon Daily Mailin 1906 describing the spectacle.
But at other times he stays for quite ten minutes.
Pelorus Jack was last seen in 1912.
But he probably died of old age.
View of Te Aumiti / French Pass.
I knew Pelorus Jack back in 1886.
He was a smart, young dolphin, dazzling blue and white in colour, theNew York Timeswrote.
He certainly was the most gentlemanly fish I have ever met.
He was the last of the finny aristocracy from the Antipodes.
Jack was eulogized in many other ways.
A chocolate bar was named after him and there is a very popular Scottish country dance by his name.
