MASS LAUNCHING

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 43, 19 August 1943, Page 4

MASS LAUNCHING

EIGHT TOW-BOATS

USE BY AMERICANS O.C. AUCKLAND, This Day. Eight kauri motor tow-boats, which have been built for the United States Armed Forces by United Ship and Boatbuilders. Limited, will be launched by Mrs. Suliivan, wife of the Hon. D. G. Sullivan, Minister of Supply, at Auckland on Saturday morning. Fortyfive feet in length and powered by Diesel engines, these sturdy craft, which are really small tugs, are the first boats to be built in New Zealand for another country's Government. Additional craft will be constructed. Under the heading of reciprocal aid to the United States, or reverse lendlease, New Zealand's 1943 Budget provides for a shipbuilding programme estimated at £2,000,000 for the South Pacific and South-west Pacific areas.

Although they will not be launched simultaneously the tow-boats will all be moving along the slipways at the same time. The ceremony of breaking bottles of wine over their bows will be performed by children.

The names of the new vessels are those of famous Maoris. They are Kahu, the discoverer of Lake Rotorua and son of Tamatekapua; Kawa, an abbreviation of Kawatapuarangi, an ancestor of King Koroki; Koroki, the present Maori King of the Waikato; Kupe, the discoverer of New Zealand about 950 A.D.; Kaihau, former member of Parliament for Western Maori; Korokai, a member of the Tohunga family, Arawa tribe, and the claimant in the lakes case against the Crown; Kiwa, one of the greatest navigators of Maori history, who ranks with Kupe but lived at a later period; and Kanapu, a celebrated chief of the Arawa tribe.