Charmed life of the Maunganui

Press, 28 December 1985, Page 22

Charmed life of the Maunganui

What a charmed life had the former Union Company !>assenger liner, Maunganui 7527 tons gross), 46 years in all, varied and interesting. Built by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company (Glasgow), the Maunganui, a twin-screw, quadruple - expansion - engined liner, capable of 17 knots, sailed on her maiden voyage from Glasgow 74 years ago this month — on December 27, 1911.

At Plymouth she embarked 300 passengers for Australia ana New Zealand via the Cape of Good Hope. New Zealanders first saw her in February, 1912, when she entered the company’s “Horseshoe” service i.e. Wellington, Lyttelton, Dunedin, Bluff, Hobart, and Melbourne.

The Maunganui will mean many things to many people, ranging from pleasure to pain, from delight to death, in her hospital ship role at least.

The Maunganui had many varied roles in her distinguished career. One of the most attractive vessels ever built for the Union Company (which specialised in fine vessels then) she was originally a coal burner but converted to oil fuel in the early 1920’5. For her day, she was one of the best and most artistically designed liners afloat Her accommodation, in superb decor, included a magnificent dome. Where would one see that on the ocean today?

During World War I she helped carry the Main Body of the Ist New Zealand Expeditionary Force overseas, visiting Egypt and Britain. United States troops

were also ferried across the Atlantic.

When hostilities ended, the Maunganui entered the Pacific service, joining the company’s popular Tahiti on the Sydney, Wellington, Rarotonga, Papeete (Tahiti), San Francisco service, known as the Union Royal Mail Line then. After this she entered the inter-colonial trade, a most popular vessel on the Tasman. .

In her World II role as hospital ship she is probably best known by former servicemen, nurses, doctors, officers, crews, and others.

There will be bitter-sweet memories of this stately, now white-hulled ship of mercy with the large red cross. In 1945 she was attached to the British Pacific Fleet (Fleet Train). Her wartime work was varied. She visited many countries. Prisoners of war from the Far East were brought back to New Zealand too. Triumphantly she sailed from Wellington for Britain in May, 1946, with the New Zealand contingent, for the official victory celebrations in London. For those aboard, this

was- a happy voyage, if poignant too. The Maunganui was now restored to her attractive Union Company colour design. By now the veteran vessel had steamed more than two million nautical miles. In 1947 the Maunganui was sold to the Companhia Naviera del Atlantica which renamed her Cyrenia. She was registered under the flag of Panama. After fitting out for the immigrant trade in Greece, she entered the Genoa, Malta, Piraeus, Melbourne service, still structurally sound and seaworthy. Once

again she was back in Australian waters. What finally happened to this ship of distinction? She was bought by Italian shipbreakers and arrived at her “graveyard” in Savona (Italy) on February 6, 1957, some 46 years after her maiden voyage from Scotland — a fair life for any vessel. By, the time she was scrapped the Maunganui is reputed to have steamed more than three million nautical miles and must have carried countless thousands of passengers in her fuß life.