Wahine Dogged By Troubles From Start Of Construction
The steamer-express Wahine has been dogged by trouble since construction of the 9700-ton roll-on ferry began in a Clyde shipyard more than three years ago.
The Scottish firm building her went bankrupt while the vessel was being built in November, 1965. The Bank of England advanced loans to enable the shipbuilders to continue. Earlier, labour troubles in the United Kingdom ruled out any chance of getting the ship into service as scheduled for the 1965-66 holiday season.
Then the British seamen's strike came within an ace of holding up the Wahine’s sea trials. The final set-back was engine trouble which forced the ship back to port six hours after leaving Scotland for Wellington. The new ship made her maiden inter-island voyage from Wellington on the night of August 1, 1966.
When the Wahine entered the Wellington-Lytelton service she was advertised at the time as “the largest and one of the most luxurious drive-on vehicular and passenger vessels in the world.” She had cost £3.25 million. A few weeks later, on September 24, 1966, five passengers were flung into Lyttelton
harbour when a 50-mi le anhour gust blew the Wahine away from the wharf and the two gangways fell into the water.
The Wahine is.a twin-screw, drive-on vessel 448 ft long with a 71ft beam. Her power is derived from turbo-electric machinery producing 18,500 horsepower. She is fitted with the latest flume tank stabilisation system to counteract rolling in heavy weather, and has thrust units fore and aft to assist berthing. There is accommodation for 928 passengers.
The vessel has all the latest navigational aids—radar, direction finder, echo sounder and radio telephone. Captain H. G. Robertson took over command of the Wahine from Captain E. G. K.
Meatyard at the end of October, 1886. The ship was dogged by minor defects for a period after she began service. Once she left Wellington an hour and a half late because a hy-
draulic gangway refused to retract, and on another occa-
sion she was held up in Web lington for several hours because of a faulty steam pipe. The clipper-bowed Wahine had its first taste of a storm on its five-week delivery voyage from Scotland. As it neared New Zealand it struggled through a southeasterly gale for five or six hours, but Captain Meatyard said at the time it had per- ' Formed well. The Wahine is the second ; vessel to bear the name. The i first, of 4436 tons, was on the ; Wellington-Lyttelton run and i served in both world wars. She ended her career when she struck a reef in the Arafura Sea, 265 miles north of Darwin, on August 16, 1951, I when carrying troops to Korea. She broke in two and sank, although the 575 troops and crew of 80 were taken off by the tanker Stanvac Karachi and taken to Darwin. I Indonesian castaways who I arrived in Darwin a fortnight I ago from a nearby island said • the wreck of the Wahine was still visible on Masela reef.
Wahine Dogged By Troubles From Start Of Construction
Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31652, 11 April 1968, Page 10
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