CAREER ENDED

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 183, 1 May 1933, Page 8

CAREER ENDED

Ferry Steamer Condor

NOW BEING DISMANTLED

After 28 years’ service as a ferry steamer on Auckland Harbour, followed by 12 mouths’ idleness alongside the wharf, the Devonport Ferry Company’s .steamer Condor has been definitely withdrawn from service and her career as a ferry steamer is now over, reports the Auckland “Herald.” She is now being dismantled and afterward she will probably be moored off Shoal Bay to await'final disposal. The vessel’s long career is of considerable interest She is an iron vessel built at Glasgow in 1902 and afterward shipped to Auckland in sections. The vessel was put together the following year by Mr. George Niccol at Freeman's Bay. She was intended to be a vehicular vessel, the first of her kind at Auckland, and was to embark vehicles from a vehicular landing which the Auckland Harbour Board had arranged to provide. The Condor was ready for commission long before the vehicular landing was constructed, and after lying idle at the wharf for two years, she was converted into a passenger steamer, similar in construction to the other steamers of the company.

As a vehicular steamer, the main deck, which was for vehicles, was covered by a superstructure on which was seating accommodation for passengers. To convert her into a passenger steamer, the superstructure was removed and was replaced by a deck with cabin below. Besides being used as a ferry steamer, the vessel also carried large numbers of excursionists, and she was often utilised to carry stock between Auckland and Brown’s Island, and also to and from the quarantine station at Motiiilii Island. During the war she carried across the harbour numbers of soldiers, including members of the Maori Contingent, who were in camp at Narrow Neck.