KAITUNA SOLD

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 98, 22 October 1938, Page 24

KAITUNA SOLD

OLD TRANS-TASMAN

STEAMER

The old trans-Tasman steamer Kaituna, of 2042 tons gross, which for many years was employed regularly in the Union Steam Ship Company's cargo service between New Zealand and Australia, has been sold by the Chinese shipping company, which bought her some years ago, to Wallem and Co., Ltd., of Panama, who have renamed her the Needwood, the name under which she was launched in England 34 years ago, according to the "Daily Commercial News and Shipping List." The'steamer will be employed as a tramp under the Panamanian flag, which is flown by a number of other old Australian and New Zealand ships. The Kaituna was built in 1904 by Osbourne, Graham, and Co., Sunderland, and soon after her launching as the Needwood she was taken over by the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand and renamed. Several years ago, when that company was replacing its older ships with new tonnage, the Kaituna was displaced from the traiis-Tasman cargo service and sold to the Foo Hong Steamship Co., of Hong Kong, which ran the steamer in the China coast trade until her recent sale to Panama. She is powered by a triple-expansion engine built by the North-eastern Marine Engineering Company, and is 279.3 ft long, with a beam of 40.1 ft and a depth of 18.1 ft. The Kaituna's new owners, Wallem and Company, Ltd., are a new company which own only the one ship.