LAST VISIT TO PORT

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31247, 20 December 1966, Page 22

LAST VISIT TO PORT

Ship Destined For Breakers

The Port Line’s oldest vessel is now paying her final visit to Lyttelton. She is the 8702-ton, twin-screw Port Wyndham, a strikingly handsome vessel by any standards, and belonging to a company which prides itself on its immaculate well-kept merchant fleet.

The Port Wyndham is discharging Glasgow and Liverpool cargo at Cashin quay. She has already called at Wellington and will complete discharge at Dunedin and New Plymouth. From New Plymouth she will proceed to Japan for scrapping.

Commanded by Captain M. S. Box, the Port Wyndham is a product of John Brown’s famous Clydebank shipyard. She was launched in 1934 and her yard number was 541 (the Queen Mary was 542). The Port Wyndham was one of the last British merchant vessels'to suffer enemy attack before the end of the Second World War. She survived a submarine attack by torpedo off Dungeness and received hull damage. More recently, the Port Wyndham’s engine room was severely burned when the ship was at New Plymouth last May, delaying her homeward voyage by a month.

Apart from these incidents, th? Port Wyndham is considered to have had a charmed life. Until 18 months ago, she carried 12 passengers, as did the bulk of the Port Line’s ships, but today she is only a cargo liner.

Her departure from the New Zealand scene marks the end of an era of graceful cargo liners in the United Kingdom-Australia-New Zealand trade.