OLD CARGO SHIP.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 72, 26 March 1928, Page 10

OLD CARGO SHIP.

RAKANOA TO BE SUNK.

RESCUE OF HAWEA RECAIXED

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, this day.

Having outlived her - usefulness, the Rakanoa, one of the oldest and bestknown cargo ship in the Union Company's fleet, is soon to share the ftae of several of her former contemporaries, such as the Polierua and Takapuna, by being towed out to sea and scuttled.

Rusty and weather-beaten, with her bottom thickly coated with marine growth, the Rakanoa is at present being stripped of all useful gear and fittings, and after taking in a quantity of ballast she will be towed out into Cook Strait and sunk beyond the 100-fathom line.

The Rakanoa, which is of 2246 tons gross register, with a deadweight capacity of 3400 tons, was built in 1896 by W. Dobson and Company at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Her engines were supplied by Blair and Co., of Stockton.' The ship was built to the order of Bells Bros., of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and was originally named Bells. While still in the builders' hands, however, she was purchased by the Union Company and renamed the Rakanoa. Under the command of Captain J. H. Richardson she left South Shields on April 18, 1896, and after calling at Amsterdam took a cargo of railway material out to Delagoa Bay. Thence she came on to New Zealand, arriving at Port Chalmers on July 31, 1896. At that time the Rakanoa was a very up-to-date steamer and one of the largest, if not the largest, of her c'ass in the Union Company's fleet.

Probably the ship's outstanding adventure was the salving of the Union Company's collier Hawea 20 years ago. The Hawea was bound from Newcastle to Gisborne when she broke her tail shaft on July 30, 1908. In those days very few ships were equipped with wireless, and nothing was known of the mishap to the Hawea until she became overdue. She was adrift for four weeks until she was picked up on August 28 by the Rakanoa and towed into Sydney. The Hawea was wrecked on Greymouth Bar a few months later.

The Rakanoa ended her seagoing career in July, 1925. since which time she has been used as a coal-store ship at Wellington.

Pnring her long career the Rakanoa had many masters, and very many officers and engineers of the Union Company have sailed in her. Of the officers who served in the Rakanoa on her maiden vovase to New_Zealand probably the sole survivor is Captain J. S. Gill, of the Union Company's shore staff at "Wellington. He was on board her when she ran her trial trip in 1896, and he was in charge of her when she moved under Tier own power fir the last time from the Pipitea wharf to Evans Bay in 1925.