THE QUEEN MARY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 151, 27 June 1936, Page 8

THE QUEEN MARY.

COULD SHE VISIT N.Z.? (By J.C.) That was a question I discussed with a master mariner of long experience, an del hand in the Reel Funnel Line and in New Zealand pilotage. His technical knowledge qualified him to speak with authority. He had piloted along the coast in recent years the largest liners that have visited £ ew Zealand. In the first place, he said, there were very few ports in the world that the world's latest and greatest ship could enter. Channels and berths had to be dredged specially for her. The Queen Mary is not at all likely to visit these southern parts of the world, but if she did there is not one commercial port where she could berth. Both Auckland and Wellington harbours are too shallow for this 83,000-ton monster—if one may call a lady a monster. At the Pipitea wharves, the most modern part of the berthage in AVellington, the extreme depth, 42 feet, would give the Queen Mary only two feet of water under her keel. At the entrance between Wellington Heads there is only 42 feet. It would not be possible for the ship to come into Wellington unless the channel, which is very narrow, and the berth were specially dredged for her. Wellington harbour is gradually being silted up in places by the large quantities of mud carried down by the Hutt River in floods, the result of deforestation and the erosion of the hill country and the banks. Lyttelton and Otago harbours are too shallow to be entered even by liners half the Queen Mary's size. There are, of course, New Zealand harbours that the Queen Mary could easily enter. Supposing the great ship were to cruise to these parts of the world as a luxury liner, she would have any amount of water to play with in entering the southern fiords. She could be navigated close up to the granite cliffs of Milford Sound, where there would be in some places more than a thousand feet of water under her. She could also go into Queen Charlotte Sound, but no pilot would care to take her through Tory Channel, though there is jdenty of depth there. The large ships going to Picton do not use Tory Channel. The Queen could safely enter Whangaroa Harbour and the outer parts of the Bay of Islands, and also Port Fitzroy. "Was it worth while building so huge a ship that can use so few commercial harbours of Europe and America 1" is a question that has often been discussed. The maritime man I have mentioned is decidedly of the opinion that it was worth while. In the first place, Britain cannot afford to let her sea .prestige be taken from her by any other country. In these days it is more important than ever to keep ahead of rival nations in naval architecture, in both the fighting and the merchant services. The Queen Mary's hull, although built for the mercantile fleet, is stronger than many of the older ships in the Navy. There is little doubt that when she was designed and built the probability that she would bo needed as a great war transport was kept in mind. She would be able to transport swiftly an army across the Atlantic or between England and France.