LAUNCH ALERT SAILED ON MANY SCIENTIFIC CRUISES

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28207, 20 February 1957, Page 13

LAUNCH ALERT SAILED ON MANY SCIENTIFIC CRUISES

“The Press' Special Service

DUNEDIN, February 18. The sturdy little motor vessel Alert, now on a scientific cruise of Cook Strait and North Island waters, is probably making her last voyage in the ownership of Mr A. J. Black, a Dunedin businessman. The Alert, veteran of many cruises in the interests of scientific investigation, natural history, and oceanography, is for sale. Mr Black, in making the decision to sell, was influenced by business commitments, which in future would prevent his taking the Alert to sea regularly. Launched in 1942. at Everett, Washington, as a harbour defence motor launch, the Alert came to New Zealand under the American lend-lease scheme. During the war she was based at Wellington, and after the war was laid up at Auckland. Mr Black bought her in 1946, and after overhauling her two 170 h.p. diesel motors, sailed her south to Dunedin. Early in 1947, the Alert began the' first of her many voyages in the ownership of Mr Black. A party of overseas and New Zealand engineers was taken to Caswell Sound, Fiordland, to investigate the possibilities of hydroelectrical development in the I area.

Later in the year, the Alert visited the Snares Islands and the Solander Islands group. The director of the Dominion Museum, Dr. R. A. Falla, headed this expedition, the purpose of which was to investigate bird life on the Snares and the seal rookeries at the Solanders.

In 1948. the Alert made two scientific trips. While the vessel was on a Sea Scout training and recruiting cruise, a party of botanists was taken north to the Three Kings Islands. The second trip, a preliminary survey of Fiordland by an American, Colonel J. K. Howard, led to an American-New Zealand expedition in the next year. Led by Dr. Olaus J. Murie, director of the Wilderness Society of America, this expedition began in February, 1949, and continued until May. More than 30 scientists and their supplies were taken in and out of Fiordland by the Alert.

The upper structure of the Alert was converted to provide more comfortable accommodation and her bridge was totally enclosed before she began her next voyage. With Dr. Falla on board, she sailed to Antipodes Island where an investigation of the bird life of the island was made. It was during this expedition

a new species of petrel was discovered.

The Alert has not always merely taken passengers on her scientific cruises. In September, 1951, she was used to supplement H.M.N.Z.S. Lachlan in an underwater survey. Seabottom sediments around Kapiti Island and Stephens Island were dredged. In 1955, two zoologists from the Dominion Museum dredging animal life from deep water off Taiaroa Head in the Alert discovered a starfish species new to New Zealand and only the third specimen of its kind in the world. It was found at 33U fathoms.