RETIRED FROM SEA

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 123, 27 May 1941, Page 13

RETIRED FROM SEA

CAPTAIN OF AORANGI UNION COMPANY MASTKK Known for manv vears as a popular Union Steam Ship Company master, Captain T. V. Hill, whose last command was the transpacific liner Aorangi, has retired. Captain Hill was born in Auckland in ]881 and served his time as a youth in intercolonial sailing ships, notably the barquentines Countess of Ranfurly and Senorita, the barque Manurewa and a Government steamer trading to the Cook Islands. He was also a member of the crew of the barque Royal Tar when she struck Shearer Rock in the Hauraki Gulf and be- [ a total wreck in November, It was shortly after securing his second mate's ticket that Captain Hill entered the service of the Union Company and he was appointed fourth officer of the Manuka in 1905. He was chief officer of the Moura in 1910, and was appointed to the command of the first Komata in 1915, and later the Karori, Atua, Navua, the first Kurow and the first Waimarino. He entered the transpacific cargo service in 1923 and commanded the Waikawa, Waitemata, Wairuna and Hauraki. Before being transferred to the company's passenger vessels, the first of which was the Tahiti and later the Marama, he commanded the oil tanker Otokia. From 1927 to 1935, except for periods when he relieved in the Aorangi and the Monowai, he commanded the company's liner Niagara. On the retirement of Captain J. F. Spring-Brown in 1936, Captain Hill was appointed to the command of the Aorangi and remained in that vessel until he was recently relieved owing to an illness.