TUGBOAT'S END.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 10

TUGBOAT'S END.

FIFTY YEARS OLD.

EARLY SERVICE RECALLED.

«SEA BOOTS NOT '"NEEDED." • (From- Our Own Correspondent.)

DARGAVILLE, this day. The .trawler Pilot, .which was totally wrecked.at Napier this week, when she went to the rescue of another trawler, was once well known on';' the' Northern Wairoa River. In those days.she 'was by .Captain W. Harrison, who used her'for towing jafts of logs. ■. ;

Captain "Sandy" "Vause/ recalls that the Pilot was built* for the 'Wellington Harbour Board-about 1885,.her engines being constructed for the •Ihinedin Exhibition in 1884.- -The vessel",was. in regular use towing logs to Pahi, Port Albert, Heleneville and to, the mills at-Aratapu, Aoroa.and;Te Kopuru.- She also used to tow the harquentine May from the Kaipafa toOnehunga loaded.with logs, doing that regularly until the' May was wrecked with the loss of all hands but one. The Pilot was actually towing the May, when _ she commenced her last tragic voyage, and cast off from the barquentine owing to .the.severe gale which had sprung up after the vessels had crossed the Kaipaf a Bar. " <

The owners' brother, .Mr. Ted Harrison, was on the Pilot as sailing master at the time,'and associated with him were Captain ;Blomfield, Mr. . Snewde (engineer), Mr. Frank Passall. (fireman), and i Mr. A. S tana way (deckhand).

The. Pilot stood out to sea and for three,days,andnights.Ted Harrison never; left the bridge. On the afternoon of .the third-day the crew i saw-him come down fro,nv the i for,, the .first, time* He *wen£ below and came, back' smoking .'a: cigarette.. They' knew'- then that the w : qrst waSjdjver, and on the I ,following day; they turned .the tug, ana came; back :to land; crossing the Kaipa'ra Bar -at high water. '■ The crew were worn out, b'ufc the: little -vessel suffered no 'damage l : whatsoever* ,-:•;;;-.:; rri I::-,,'. v:.t f.J

Captain Vause recalls that as a member of the crew of the Pilot he once made a trip from Aratapu to New Plymouth. The little tug was laden with, nine tone of explosives, which, had been brought in the scow Warrior from Auckland to Aratapu. The residents of Aratapu were in fear that there would be an explosion. The residents wer© very pleased when the whole nine tons was safely aboard the Pilot, which sailed for New Plymouth without lights, except in the engine-room, where the lantern was doubly encased. A double watch was kept and the crew could not smoke. Tihe Pilot had no hold and the explosives were stored in the fore and'&ft cabins. The crew had to sleep amongst the cargo. "'The Pilot is a great sea boat,' Captain Harris on always said. 'You don't want sea boots on the Pilot; you want carpet slippers.' She was," concluded Captain Vause, "as sturdy a craft as you could imagine, as broad as she was long, with a wide belting around her upon which the. rafters would walk as they picked up logs on the river. She had no top hamper." > Thus passes another link with the logging days op the Northern Wairoa.