Ms Rosier-Jones related how Rowe's companion, Andrew Powers, survived the encounter and the story was relayed to T.W Downes who would record it in his 1915 book Old Whanganui.
As the Wairua made its way up to Upokongaro, passengers were treated to anecdotes about famous and notorious writers who made Wanganui their home or visited and wrote about the river.
George Bernard Shaw was enamoured of the river as were James K Baxter, Sylvia Ashton-Warner and politician and author John A Lee who wrote the book Delinquent Days about his time in Wanganui. Lee's good friend, author and one time Wanganui Chronicle journalist Robin Hyde received special mention.
Hyde would lose her job in 1930 after it was revealed that she became pregnant to a married fellow journalist and refused to have an abortion.
The male journalist, it seems, remained nameless and blameless although Ms Rosier-Jones quoted Hyde's comment that he offered to pay half the cost of an abortion and prompted her to write - "Well, I thought, you can't say we haven't got sex equality all right."
The son Hyde gave birth to, Derek Challis, published The Book of Iris: A biography of Robin Hyde in 2002.
A lunch stop at Upokongaro included a visit to St Mary's Church which is the subject of Wendy Pettigrew's book The Church by the River: St Mary's Upokongaro.
Two authors from the writers' list were aboard the Wairua on Saturday and Jim Parnell spoke about his 2005 book In the Wake of the Riverboats and said it is a compilation of stories told by riverboat captains.
Murray Crawford talked of his recently republished Mystery of the Whanganui first published in 1994. He said it was inspired by his great-grandfather, James Nixon who came to Wanganui from Ireland and brought the first oil-powered launches to sail on the river.
Boats and those who sailed them on the Whanganui River have inspired a number of writers, and brothers David and Alec Reid published Paddle Wheels on the Whanganui in 1967.
"David Reid was an engineer who worked on the Wairua and when his book was published he lamented that both the Wairua and the Waimarie were sunk in the mud of the riverbed," said Ms Rosier-Jones. "How pleased he would be to find they are resurrected."
Another literary festival trip up the river is planned for September. Wanganui District Council's heritage services leader Gillian Tasker said there will be a interesting authors aboard including renowned fiction writer Charlotte Grimshaw, writer of paranormal romances Nalini Singh and investigative journalist and publisher of political exposes Nicky Hager.