A REMARKABLE ACCIDENT

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 114, 18 May 1925, Page 9

A REMARKABLE ACCIDENT

The first twin screw steamer built tot* the Union Company, the little MahW;pua, once well known round the New;' Zealand coast and later in Tasmania was the victim of a unique accident-.-Launched on tho 31st December, 1881 ■ from the yards of Messrs. W. Denny ♦ Bros., Dumbarton, the builders of many of the Union Company's ewEer vessels,', she was thrown up on to the breastwork : of the Quay a few days later during a great storm. From this rxjsitiorTisha was relaunched with great difficulty a couple of weeks later, nothing the. woaa for her experience. V^

Scofe surnames figure pr«nj« nently in the personnel lists of the Unfctt Company, especially: the. prefix ."llac";; . ",The Greyhound of the Pacific" vm the appropriate name given to aa. Hotcx mahaua by virtue of her speed, in Has: early 'eighties. „,'-•

Schnars-Alquist, the well-kntwm Goat 3« nental marine painter, has immorfca&edt' , ■ tne-graceful .s.s.' Rotomahsna in one «£ * his finest; paintingß of the sea. v ■ ■- Old travellers still talk of £» <3*ys ' when, ojving to competitioni a trip cooH :-:i be niade from New Zealand to &vdaoV for £lv " a ■ ■ J•'-•

A service between Sydn^ and Noumea/ New Caledonia, the former Erench penal settlement, was maintained by tha Union Company's s.s. Taiaroa.

"Dennjrs, of Dumbarton," th» famous Clyde shipbuilders, are indissolnbly associated with tho .history of the Union Company's great fleet of steamwa. -

When New South Wales was a free** trade-colony: a substantial business was done with Sydney in New Zealand pro- . duco carried by Union Company steajn-: crsi ........ ..