Rotoiti Now Going To Waitangi Celebrations

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30357, 5 February 1964, Page 14

Rotoiti Now Going To Waitangi Celebrations

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, Feb. 4. The frigate, H.M.N.Z.S. Rotoiti, which left Auckland yesterday for Fiji, has been ordered to change course for the Bay of Islands and to take part in the Waitangi celebrations. The signal with the new orders, made early- this morning, cancelled the frigate’s 4000-mile tour of the main New Zealand ports as . escort to the Royal yacht Britannia in which the Queen mother would have travelled during the New Zealand tour. The Britannia was about 1400 miles to the east of Fiji and on her way from Panama. The two ships would have met on February 10 when the Queen Mother was to have arrived in Fiji by air and joined the Royal yacht. , The two ships, in company, were then to have visited in turn Auckland, Wellington, Timaru, Bluff, Dunedin, and Lyttelton. The Queen Mother’s tour of New Zealand, was to have ended on February, 28 and the Rotoiti Would not have returned to Auckland until March 3. Guard of Honour The other Navy commitment in connexion with the tour was the 100-strong guard of honour and colour guard that was to have been inspected by the Queen Mother when she disembarked at Auckland. This had been in training for the last 10 days, but will now be disbanded. Perhaps the most disappointed Navy man will be Midshipman R. J. Pierson, of Lower Hutt, now serving in

in the cruiser H.M.N.Z.S. Royalist. He was to have received from the Queen Mother, as soon as she stepped ashore at Princes wharf, the Queen’s telescope award he won last year at Dartmouth Naval College;