FINE RECORD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 192, 16 August 1938, Page 7

FINE RECORD.

CHATHAMS TRADER. TWO HUNDRED TRIPS. CAPTAIN ANDREW DOWELL. The completion of 200 round voyage* between New Zealand and the. Chatham Inland* i» the notable record of Captain Andrew Dowell, master of the trawler South Sea, in hie association of 25 years with the Dominion's coastal trade. Hi* 400 traverses of the stormy stretch of ocean between New Zealand and the Chatham* represent 180,000 miles of■teaming in small, low-powered steamers of the coastal type. * Wild and stormy though it can be, the Chatham Islands trade has no terrors for Captain Dowell in his staunch little South Sea, of 322 tons. He first went to sea as a boy in a tiny schooner, •ad he has traded in little ships the World over for the last 45 years. In them he has voyaged as far north as Iceland and the White Sea, and has weathered winter gales in the Black Sea. He comes of sturdy eailor stock, •U the men of his family being seafaring folk.

Captain Andrew Dowell was born in 1878 in London, and, at the age of 15 years, went to sea in the little schooner Girl of the Period, Nicholls master, of Whitstable, Kent, his pay being 35/ a voyage (states the "Dominion").

Wreck Recalled. I In 1011 his brother, Captain John Dowell, junr., wh6 wae master of the topsail schooner Bellflower, was drowned when that vessel, bound from Dunedin to Kaipara, wae wrecked in a southeast gale on Banks Peninsula. In the meantihie, Captain Andrew , Dowell had resigned a steamship comyinand with the idea of buying a Mhooner and bringing her out to New Zealand. Hi* brother , * death changed

that plan, and he went out to Sydney in command of the new steamer Tarnbar, which he delivered to the North Coast Company. Crossing to New Zealand, Captain Dowell joined the service of the Blackball Coal Company in 1913, becoming master of the Ngatoro, his brother Peter being master of the Njrakuta.

It was in the Ngatoro that Captain Dowell made his first acquaintance with the Chatham Islands, making seven voyages there in that ship. The brothers remained with the Blackball Coal Company till- 1922, when the ships were acquired by the Union Steam Ship Company. In that year Captain Dowell became interested in the formation of the Westland Shipping, Company, J Limited, on whose account he went to England and purchased the steamer Tees, 546 tone, which he commanded in the Chatham Islands trade till 1931. Captain Dowell in 1932 was largely instrumental in forming the South Sea Fishing Company, Limited, om whose behalf his brother Peter went"o England and purchased the trawler South Sea. She was brought out to New Zealand and has been engaged successfully in the Chatham Islands trade ever since under the command of Captain Andrew Dowell.

Captain Dowell, when he was leaving Wellington recently on his 201 st voyage to the Chatham Islands, cheerfully admitted that the trade, especially the fisheries side of it, was a hard life. Many wild gales had to be weathered, but the weather was not always bad. Much of the uncertainty of the run had been removed since the radio station had been established at the islands, and both the Tees and the South Sea were equipped with wireless.