KAKAPO SOLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 196, 19 August 1936, Page 8

KAKAPO SOLD.

UNION CO.'S STEAMER. TOWED TO VIADUCT TO-DAY. DISMANTLING INTENDED. The Union Steam Ship Company's old steamer Kakapo, which has been bought by Mr. F. Appleton; of Newmarket, to be broken lip, was towed from Rotten Row to the Western Viaduct this morning. For seven years the- Kakapo has been used as a hulk for the storage of coal and oil, but before that she was one of the best-known freighters in the intercolonial trade.

The Kakapo is a vessel of 1521 tons, and was built at Greenock in 1901. She is 258 ft in length, with a beam of 30ft. Originally she was known as the Scarisbrick.

When the Kakapo was berthed this morning she had over 100 tons of coal in her holds, and plenty of evidence that she had also been used for the storing of oil. Although her decks showed all the effects of a long period at anchor, her engine room was in good order, and her big triple expansion engines looked as if they could be got ready at short notice.

Mr. Appleton spent most of the morning planning the destruction of the old fillip. The work will take about three months, but at the moment it is not known how much labour will be used. The steamer is to be stripped of everything possible, and in the end the hull will probably be towed away for' use as a breakwater.

The winches, boilers, pumps and engines will make quite a good prize for sliip-breakere. In the case of the engines it is intended to take them down piece by piece, and it will not be necessary to cut them up.

Mi". said that there was a good market in New Zealand for a lot of the material, but it was probable that some of the smaller parts would be shipped to Japan as scrap metal. This is the fourth venture of the kind in Auckland. Previously he stripped the Eotomahana and Wakatere, at one time two well-known steamers in the Northern Steamship Company's fleet, also ■the coastal steamer Kurnalpi.