More Info →Sketch of the Felix Stowe

The Felix Stowe was a barque trading into Otaki. She was wrecked on 13 October 1878 when - like the Hydrabad in June of the same year - she mistook the northern end of Kapiti, on which there was no lighthouse, for Stephens Island in Cook Straight. The captain, Piggot, was never found; three crewman were washed ashore dead. The ship's resting place is off the coast just to the south of Pakakutu - a little to the north of the mouth of Otaki. The sketch, by the locally celebrated artist John Tiffin Stewart was perhaps executed before the wreck.