OLD STEAMER' TALUNE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 246, 17 October 1925, Page 11

OLD STEAMER' TALUNE.

HULK TO BE SUNK. PROTECTION AT WAIKOKOPU. LONG PERIOD OF SERVICE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) GISBORNE, this day. The Government has acquired the hulk of the steamer Talune for the purpose of sinking it at Waikokopu, as a protection for the harbour works. The | price is understood to be £200. I I Once well known in the intercolonial j service, the Union Steamship Co.'s old I steamer Talune has been laid up in the tipper harbour, off Chelsea, for nearly five years. Throughout her thirty-five years of service, the Talune lived a charmed life, and was never concerned in any serious marine casualty. She was built during the year 1890 to the order of the Tasmanian Steam Navigation I Company, the building occupying six I months, and was intended for the Sydney-Hobart run. The . following year, however, the plant and business of ' that line were purchased by the Union Company, the property acquired comprising eight vessels, including the Talune, of an aggregate tonnage of 9892. The steamers taken over brought up the total of the fleet to fifty-three vessels.

Thus in 1891 the Talune commenced her services under the flag of the Union Company. For some years she saw service in the intercolonial run between Melbourne and Bluff, the vessel's itinerary including calls at the main ports along the East Coast of the South Island. Later she was transferred to the Eastern Pacific trade, and, during the war period, was in the run between Auckland and the islands of the Western Pacific. The vessel last arrived at Auck-. land on February 10, 1921, when she brought a cargo of fruit from Eastern Pacific Islands. After completing her discharge she was taken up harbour and laid up indefinitely, and has not since shifted from her moorings. She is now out of date and the decision to end her days was recently arrived at. The vessel has already been dismantled, and next week she will land her fittings, which are to be sold at auction.

The most interesting feature in the Talune's career was when she towed the disabled steamer Perthshire from the vicinity of Norfolk Island to Sydney. The Perthshire left Sydney for Bluff on April 25, 1899. On the second day from port her tail-shaft broke and she drifted helplessly in the Tasman Sea. There was no wireless then, and the mishap was not realised until the steamer was well overdue. She was sighted on May 8 by the schooner Whangaroa, by the barque Northern Chief on May 2.5, and again on June 7 by the sailing vessel Verajean. In the meantime about a dozen steamers had zig-zagged about in the Tasman Sea without seeing her. On June 13, 47 days after the Perthshire had broken down, she was sighted by the Talune, which was en route from Wellington to Sydney, and had diverted 400 miles from her course. The master and crew of the Talune received a great ovation Perthshire in tow.

when they readied Sydney with the The Talune. which in her prime was a favourite with passengers travelling to and from Australia, is a vessel of 2087 tons, and is of the following dimensions: Length 2Soft, breadth 38.2 ft and depth 13.5 ft. She was built by Messrs. Bamage and Ferguson, and launched from their yards at Leith. Her engines had an indicated horse-power of 2000.