Ex-navy man Richard Cox has been seeing a former Wahine lifeboat parked up in Whanganui's Ikitara Rd for years and can't bear to watch it deteriorate.
On April 10, 1968, he was aboard a navy ship in Hong Kong.
"We woke up at 6am on our ship and went down to breakfast, and we heard the Wahine had sunk, with loss of life."
On that day there were 734 passengers and crew aboard, and 51 people died.