Govt. Offers Whalers Aid But Decision Is Final

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30642, 7 January 1965, Page 1

Govt. Offers Whalers Aid But Decision Is Final

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, January 6. The Marine Department has offered assistance to the Tory Channel Whaling Company which two days ago announced its intention to close down. But the Minister of Marine (Mr Scott) said in Auckland today that the company believed nothing more could be done to enable it to continue operating.

3 Tn e Government guarantees £45 a ton for whale oil, and last year the season was extended.

1 The company has been operating uneconomically because of poor catches and oil prices. Mr Scott said the world price for whale oil—the main reason for the company’s decision—had dropped further recently as a result of big catches by foreign fleets. The company’s mother ship, the Tuatea, has been bought by Otakau Fisheries. Ltd., of Dunedin, for conversion into a trawler.

Otakau Fisheries hope to have the conversion completed and the Tuatea fishing from Port Chalmers by the end of March.

The conversion, which will include the installation of refrigeration equipment and the latest Norwegian echo-sound-ing equipment, will probably be carried out at Nelson, where a suitable slip is available.

The 90ft Tuatea. which is expected to have a refrigerated hold for between 40 and 50 tons of fish, will be the biggest trawler in the South Island and one of the biggest in New Zealand. With the Tuatea, Otakau Fisheries hopes to take advantage of the incentives the Government is offering the industry.

Because of her size, the Tuatea will be able to fish more extensive areas, remain |at sea longer, and continue fishing in seas which drove I smaller boats to shelter. The last trawler similar in

size to the Tuatea to fish from Port Chalmers was the National Mortgage and Agency Company’s Taiaroa, which was sold 11 years ago. The Taiaroa recently was converted to a line-fishing mothership at the Chatham Islands. For the Tuatea her sale to Dunedin owners is something of a homecoming, as she has been registered at Dunedin since she was built at Auckland 60 years ago. The reason for this is that her first owner, the Union Steam Ship Company, at that time bad its head office in Dunedin.

The Union Company used the Tuatea for cargo and passenger lightering at the open roadstead ports on the North Island's east coast. She is built of heavy kauri. in 1929 she was sold to the Perano family at Picton for use as a mother ship and tug. Her steam engine was replaced in 1948 by a 470 h.p. diesel motor.