A Captain's Story: The Capitaine Bougainville on 3rd Sept 1975
- Dallas Gurney
- Sep 10, 2025
- 2 min read
It must've been an emotional day for Jean-Raymond Thomas, the Captain of the Capitaine Bougainville. He'd had a morning alongside a 100+ locals and visitors remembering the day his life, and those of many, changed forever.
It'd been 50 years since the Capitaine Bougainville caught fire, amidst the roughest of seas Northland has ever produced, resulting in a 3:40am order by Thomas to abandon ship. In the torrential rain and gale-like conditions, his own lifeboat carrying 24 people would capsize many times - vertically even - in the giant seas.
Sixteen people, including Thomas' own wife, daughter and two step-children would die. It remains Northland's deadliest maritime disaster. The tragedy led the nation's news for days.
But the 84 year-old Thomas showed no fatigue as, late in the afternoon on the same spring day, he took a few of us over to his old aluminium lifeboat. It was disguised in full view - easy for those stumbling across to think it was abandoned long ago by an owner with no further use for it, or perhaps it was a piece of flotsam from some wreck in the distant islands. But no. This was it, his boat. He'd discovered it next to the pines on the southside in a visit six years ago, and it was there - fifty years later - he recounted the tragic events of the Capitaine Bougainville on the night of 3rd September 1975.
It's hard to find much online and in old newspapers about the cause of the fire aboard the Capitaine Bougainville. The Captain here explains what the investigators found.
And, finally amongst the pines and the Tui and Kereru, we spoke about how Thomas feels when he returns to Whananaki on one of his many pilgrimages over the years.
Whananaki FM thanks Captain Thomas, Shaun Te Pania and Whananaki School, as well as the families and friends of those who lost loved ones in the disaster. Their openness to share, despite their loss, helps future generations keep the memory of the ship and those on board - survivors and victims - alive.
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