Mararoa always a favourite

Press, 4 December 1985, Page 13

Mararoa always a favourite

By

JOHN LESLIE

It was December 4, 1885 - and a revoluntionary vessel for her time entered service in the Pacific for her owner, the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand, Ltd. She was the handsome Mararoa (2465 tons), launched from the shipyard of Denny Bros at Dumbarton, on the Clyde. She was a bold project for the fledgling, Dunedin-based Union Company, which had then

been in business only 10 years. The single-screw Mararoa was designed for the intercolonial service and to luxurious (by those days) standards. She had firstclass and second-vessel (steerage) accommodation. Not only was she the biggest vessel then designed for the inter-colonial service, she was the first vessel in the Pacific with tripleexpansion engines, with a

service speed of 16 knots. She was first used on the mail service between Sydney and San Francisco via Auckland, because when the Oceanic Steam Ship Company of America (Matson) and the Union Company were jointly awarded the contract there was no ther suitable Union Company vessel. The Mararoa was first seen in New Zealand waters on December 8, 1885, when

she called at Auckland on passage from Sydney to San Francisco. (Incidentally, she did not call at her home port, Dunedin, 7 then the Union Company head office, until November 30, 1886. Before leaving Britain on October 2, 1985, for Pacific waters, via the Cape of Good Hope, the Mararoa made a trial voyage to Norway (September 8 to 18) and on September 22 made a shareholders’ cruise on the Clyde, her birthplace. In command of the Mararoa on her maiden voyage was Captain J. Edie. The chief engineer was Mr C. McAllister. At San Francisco the Mararoa was so popular that Mr McAllister was presented with three brass eagles which had been attached to the tail rods of the American steamer Queen of the Pacific. These were subsequently screwed to the Mararoa’s tail rods. The Mararoa really had insufficient bunker (coal) space for the Pacific run and her use here was only a brief expedient until larger tonage was built. The Mararoa had one unusual feature in her equipment: she was steered from the bridge by a tiller (telarium), not the conventional helm. Even many older seafarers today are unaware of this. This modus operand! made her difficult to steer because the rudder was moved by. hydraulic power, necessitating a full head of steam at all times. Why vessel is hard to understand, but it is not unique.- ' ’ Hard to steer or not, the Mararoa, apart from briefly grounding in Palliser Bay in fog on February 24, 1917, had a charmed life and lasted 46 years, until she was scuttled in Cook Strait on February 16, 1931 after being stripped down to an empty shell. During the great intercolonial price war late last century between Australia’s Huddart Parker Line and the Union Company for the lucrative passenger trade, fares hit rock bottom. At one time, the Mararoa’s saloon berth fare was down to £1 ($2) and the steerage fare was 10 shillings ($1). For sheer economic survival a truce was arranged and fares rose again. Steerage travel was fairly rugged in those days and so were some of the passengers. When the Union Company’s famour passenger steamer Rotomahana was being dismantled at Melbourne in the mid-19205, workmen discovered a steerage notice buried under debris. It said: “Passengers are requested to remove their boots before retiring.”

After her successful intercolonial service the Mararoa was put on the Wellington-Lyttelton service in 1905, in conjunction with the Rotomahana. In 1907 she was relieved by the new Maori and re-entered the inter-colonial service. From 1908 to 1913 the Mararoa again resumed the Welling-ton-Lyttelton run. During the disastrous influenza epidemic of 1918 the Mararoa was the only vessel to maintain the interisland service. In April, 1924,5 he was converted to oil fuel and in that year she worked on the Nelson-Pic-ton-Wellington service and also acted as relieving ship on the inter-island run. During the Dunedin and South Seas Exhibition of 1925 the Mararoa plied a very popular passenger excursion service between Wellington, Lyttelton, and Dunedin. But for some of us, with memories of childhood, the Mararoa was the most popular coastal passenger vessel of all when she relieved on the Auckland-Gis-borne-Napier run. From Gisborne to Auckland for Christmas holidays and return we had a fine choice, not least the stately, tallmasted, lofty-funnelled Mararoa. I well recall her spacious, flush, spotless wooden decks and her ; solid, ornate interior accommodation, the magnificent scroll work not seen today. What a delight those -costal, ptissages were for a child, with Auckland, the mecca, at the end. 1 There were other vessels, too: Huddart Parker’s handsome Victoria, and her kind; and the Union . Company’s (I), and the Mokoia, only dimly:recalled, and later the much smaller; doughty first Arahura. But the Mararoa was always the favourite. Embarking or disembarking from the small Union Company’s tender Tuatea at Poverty Bay’s open roadstead in bad weather was sometimes a lively affair. With the Mararoa rolling easily to the Pacific swell of Tokomaru Bay it was sometimes amusing: from the bouncing open launch below passengers were handled like cargo, by winch and runner from outswung derrick, and hoisted into the sky. It was good fun for all. ] I think we had more fun and better food aboard the Mararoa ' then passengers j have aboard the luxurious new rail ferry Arahura in 1 Cook Strait today. Nevertheless, inter-island passengers might well spare a thought for the stately, century-old hull of the Mararoa on the strait seabed below.