Islanders’ farewell to old ferry

Press, 11 September 1985, Page 26

Islanders’ farewell to old ferry

PA Invercargill Stewart Islanders paid their last tribute to their faithful ferry Wairua when she made her final crossing between Bluff and Halfmoon Bay. As she rolled through turbulent Foveaux Strait she left some of her passengers with the effects she has dished out to thousands in her lifetime From her launching on November 16, 1961, the Wairua has been a character. That day, painted in the lavender pink that was to greet Stewart Islanders a month later, she proved more than a handful for the wife of the Minister of Marine, Mrs R. G. Gerard. Dressed in her aquamarine outfit, the Minister’s wife had to try three shots with the bottle of champagne before it finally christened the Wairua at the fourth attempt. Four days before Christmas that year, the Wairua began her service across the notorious Foveaux Strait. Some of the 96 people who actually enjoyed the final sailing, relived an ex-

perience they had repeated many times. Some had even travelled in the former Wairua. A few had been on the delivery voyage in 1961. Among those who had done both was the Wairua’s former master, Captain lan Williamson, who seemed happy enough to leave the action on the bridge to his successor, Captain Ross Christiansen. Captain Williamson, who retired 18 months ago, was sad to see the end of an era. He calculated his old ship would have made about 13,000 crossings in her 24 years on the island run. Sad too, was Mr Haxby Abbott, aged 82, who has seen many ferries come and go in his 55-year association with Stewart Island. Mr Abbott, a Rangitata farmer, decided to join the nostalgic trip “seeing I’d come over this way for a holiday on the old Wairua and was a passenger oh the first trip of this Wairua.” He mirrored the views of many Stewart Islanders when he wished the Minister of Transport, Mr Prebble, had been aboard to “cop

some flak.” “This thing is a tragedy,” Mr Abbott said. The welcome at Halfmoon Bay was much like the departure from Bluff — subdued. In the home of the chairman of the Wairua Action Committee, Mrs Gwen Neave, posters received their finishing touches and black armbands and streamers were taking shape. Commenting on the atmosphere of resignation on Stewart Island about the fate of the ship, Mrs Neave said the people were “dejected and devastated.” Later on the wharf, a crowd of 200 Stewart Islanders expressed other feelings with posters. They tied ominous black streamers to their ship and a piper, Jim Bissland, prepared to play a lament. On wharfside, the former chairman of the Southland Harbour Board, Mr Norman Armstrong, said it was “a sad day for the island which has been treated badly. “I hope that they will come right and continue to be a famous tourist attrac-

tion,” he said. Soon after 2 p.m. Mrs Anne Pullen threw the stern rope on to the Wairua for the last time. Tooting her siren, the ferry slowly edged away with a flag at halfmast on her stern. At Bluff, where she will be hoisted to dry dock to be inspected by her new Fijian Owners, she was given a quiet reception. ’ Opposition politicians mingled with Bluffies and other people waiting to greet passengers. How will Stewart Islanders live without her? “No doubt we will survive, but the young people will have to work together again and unite for one cause — the island,” said a long-time resident, Mrs Neta Rawld. Beneath the optimism lay the feeling shared by other islanders that they had been forgotten by their Government.

“Mr Prebble never heard of New Zealand’s triple star. He thinks it’s a double star,” Mrs Rawld said.