EXHIBITION FERRY WHARF

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 225, 21 June 1939, Page 10

EXHIBITION FERRY WHARF

Suggested Use For Holmwood When it was recently suggested that a wharf might be provided for ferry steamers to take passengers from tlie Wellington waterfront to the Centennial Exhibition at Rongotai. mention was made of the possible use of the four-masted barquentine, I lolmwood, which has been lying at anchor in the harbour for the last two or three years. Captain S. Holm, who owns this old vessel, says that if she could lie given berthage somewhere in Evans Bay, within reasonable distance of the exhibition, she would make an ideal stationary landing barge for ferry traffic. The Holmwood was originally the American barquentine Forest Home, which used to trade between the timber ports of North America and Australia and New Zealand.

She is built of pitch pine and Oregon pine, 772 toils register, and sound as a Ix4l below the waterline. On her last voyage to New Zealand she was held up by the crew on account of unpaid wages, and, when these claims were not met, the vessel was arrested, and held as surety against the claims. When sold at auction she was bought by Captain Holm, who used her for some years in the inter-colonial trade. When she became too costly to run in that trade, she was laid up and used as a store ship and hulk. Captain Holm says that there have been inquiries about her from possible buyers, but if she is not sold, he would be happy to make her available for wharf purposes in Evans Bay. He further suggests that her holds could be fitted with cubicles, as a place for exhibition visitors to sleep, should the threatened shortage of accommodation be borne out by experience.

Working a typewriter all day uses up more effort than eight hours of digging.