On Sunday 29 June 1879 sometime after midnight a vessel was sighted in the breakers just north of the beach settlement (later known as New Brighton). Residents from one of the few houses in the area came on the scene in a gig to see what was happening. They came upon the demise of the three masted French barque ‘B.L’. and a whole lot of luggage and cargo floating about in the surf.
The ten year old 364 tonne boat was on its side and had run aground just north of Waimairi Beach having been battered by a strong easterly gale and lost its way thick fog.
Captain Francois Savory had left San Francisco on April 12 with a cargo of barley for Lyttelton, put into Auckland on June 11th, and 97 days into her journey was about to become another wreck on a New Zealand coastline.
Remarkably Captain Francoise Savary and all 12 crew had made it ashore in the early hours. Some of the hands had set up a tent in the dunes made from sail, while a couple of locals came to their assistance later in the day and took them to their homes.
The men afterwards were placed in the New Brighton Hotel while the salvage operations began. Meanwhile the heavy surf continued to batter the remains of the barque.
Some of the cargo was retrieved and the vessel eventually sold as is where is for 40 pounds after the masts and fittings were removed.
The hull was used a marker for yacht races for a few years, but eventually disappeared beneath the sands where what is left of the B.L. lies undisturbed today.
(Below is a similar image to the type of vessel referred to above)