SHIPPING NOTES.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14620, 22 March 1913, Page 13

SHIPPING NOTES.

The Na-vua arrived at Lyttelton yesterday morning from Neleou au<l Picton, with the bal&nco of the 12th (Nelson) Regiment of Infantry, If. Battery Field Artillery and Field Ambulance—3oo men in all—en route for Springfield. In connection with the final fate of Uio well-known eteamer Wellington, a contributor writes to a.Napier paper as follows: —"I read with a twinge of regret the fate of the s.s. Wellington, in'being converted into a cement block for the extension of the breakwater »t Whangarei. My earliest recollection of thu Wellington waa in 1865, when she, with her sister ship the Taranaki, was considered tho handsomest model of marine architecture that ever Left England. Built in 1863 by Blackwood and Gordon, of Glasgow, she has hiul 50 years' career in New Zealand wntore, aim never had a mishap. Owned originally by the N.Z.S-S. Co., she waa subsequently attached to the Union Company's fleet, and, later on,, the Northern S.S. Company, her latest owners, who have, had her on the Whangerei trade for years. Tho Wellington has outlived all but one or two of the master mariners who commanded her, the Oldest living being: Captain Wheeler, of Wellington, who no- doubt, like myself, will feel the shock, trat more acutely, as she was to hjm a 'thing of beauty,' a- steam yacht, in which, he took the greatest pride, and a more popular mast-er never trod her decks."