SHIPS OF BY-GONE DAYS

Evening Star, Issue 18256, 21 April 1923, Page 10

SHIPS OF BY-GONE DAYS

THE WAIHATE—A FAST SAILER. FREQUENT VISITOR TO OTAGO. RECORD PASSAGE TO LYTTELTON. A vessel that was well known in the trade between England and Now Zealand in the seventies, eighties, and nineties l — so iu the south—was the New Zealand Shipping Company’s ship Wannate. She was a- sister snip to the Waitangi. An in tercet nig account of the many voy l ages made hy the Waimato was recently written by Mr Henrv Brett, of Auckland, from records olitained at Dunedin, Lyttelton, and Auckland, and published in the Auckland ‘Star’ on March 14. Tho Waimato was a fine vessel of 1,125 tons. Sho held the record for the fastest passage from London to Lyttelton during tho forty years from 1860 to 1900. On one occasion the Waimato and Waitangi were lying at the same wharf at Lyttelton, and ft writer in the ‘Lyttelton Times’ said, when referring to the Waitangi, that, a comparison of the two ships could bo made from a short distance.

“Tho hulls appeared very similar, but tho masts of the Waimato (Captain Rose, commander of tho fleet), ■were tauter than those of her sister Waitangi. The Waimato has a splendid spring and a good sheer, a fine poop, and.' her main deck is remarkably well laid 1 .” Sho was built by Messrs J. Bhnner andi Co., Sunderland.. Captain Peek, who made several successful voyages to New Zealand, was in command when the Waimato made the record trip. She left London on October 24, 1883, passed Eddystone Lighthouse on October 50, and reached Lyttelton on the evening of January 6, 1881. Commenting on the arrival of the Waimato, the ‘Lyttelton Times’ said it was worthy of note that the steamer Northumberland left Lorn don while tho Waimato was loading, yet, in spite of this, tho steamer only beat the sailing ship to Lyttelton by seven days. The ‘Times’ described l the Waimate’s passage as “a splendid one,” and added that it had been beaten by only one other vessel, the renowned Oliver Lang. If the Oliver Lang didi make a faster passage it must have been in tho fifties 1 .

Describing thia fast trip of Ills, Captain Peek reported having loft Gravesend on the afternoon of October 24, 1880, and the ship was then delayed by a heavy gale from the eastward. Off Falmouth the ship struck a terrific galo from the south, the glass being ns low as 28.30. At one time the vessel was in a critical situation, but eventually she got clear of the Channel, and took her final departure from the Eddystone on October ,30. Good northeast trades wore met with, and the Line was crossed on November 16—only 16d 8h from the Eddystone Lighthouse. The meridian of the Cape was passed on December 7 in 44deg south; the easting was ran down in 48deg south, Caps Leeuwin was passed on Christmas Eve, Tasmania six days later, and the Snares on January 4, at'4 a.m.—-66 days from the Eddystone. Among the passengers on that trip were the Rov. James Duller, Mrs Duller, and Miss Duller, Dr Farrell (of Nelson, who acted ns ship’s surgeon during the passage), Mr and Mrs Cholmondcley. and other colonists returning from a trip to the Old Country. The next best run by the Waimato was in 1877, when, in command of Captain Cancse, she came out to Port Chalmers in seventy-four days land to land, or seventy-eight days anchor to anchor. She crossed) the Equator nineteen days out. According to the Dunedin ‘ Evening Star,’ this was the best passage of that season. The same commander in 1839 did the same trip in seventy-eight days land to land, or eighty-four days port to port. Her last run’ to Port Chalmers, in the year 1895, completed her nineteenth passage to New Zealand, and during the whole of that time she never met with any serious accident. From New Zealand the Waimato’s best ran Homo was seventy-one days to the Scillics. Her passages to Auckland were done in ninety-three days and eighty-eight days respectively. Apparently she never onco visited'.Wellington during the long while she traded between the colony and the Old Country.

A smart piece of sailing that stood to the credit of the Waimate was her run to the Horn from Lytteflon in eighteen days in April, 1880. in running her easting down when bound for Lyttelton in 1831 with Captain Mosey in command, she logged 345 miles in twenty-four hours in latitude 47deg south, and her best week’s ran on that trip was 1,807 miles, the distance run from November 27 to December 3. As will be seen from the appended' table of her various passages to New Zealand, the Waimato was very consistent. The Waimate was sold to the Russians andl renamed the Yalkyrian. She was lost between Newcastle (New South Wales) and Chile, in 1899. She was bound for Iquiquo, and was never heard) of after leaving Newcastle.