TRAGEDY OF SAILS

Evening Star, Issue 19533, 14 April 1927, Page 2

TRAGEDY OF SAILS

OLD SCHOONER'S DECLINE * TRAINING SHIP TO TIMBER BOAT From the glory of a training ship flying the pennant of the New Zealand Government Marine to _a timber I carrier is the history, in brief, of the decline of the schooner Kekeno. She is just another tragedy of the passing of sails- , , , , Watch this bluff craft loaded with timber running up the New River Estuary, Invercargill. None would think that she was once a picture of a schooner, with cut-away bow and rakish spars, as neat a small two-master as one could see in beating about the Seven Seas. Her history lias outlived her beauty. Built by Brown and Sim at Auckland in 1878 to the order of the New Zealand Government, the vessel was launched with the name of Kekeno,, destined to he a training ship on the Wajtemata. Soon , Kekeno was a revenue cutter,. She was a fine ship, so comfortable and ■ well-appointed that the captain was accompanied by his family when on cruises. Skippered by Captain Gregg. Kekeno made .passages to the Campbell Islands in the close season, cn the lookout for the seal poachers. And it was on this ship that Captain Bollons, now on the Tutanekai, received his early training in the marine service One night in 1884 Kekeno was anchored under the Bluff pilot station. The wind came away from the southeast, and in the gale Kekeno was piled on the rocks. The ship was purchased by an Invercargill syndicate, but they disbanded while the ship was under repairs, and the vessel was taken over by Barker and Jones, who installed a one and a-ha!f ton Hercules freezing plant. So fitted, Kekeno was a fine little craft for the West Coast Sounds, and as she had a capacity for nearly 400 cases, she was a profitable venture. She was then purchased by Tom Bragg and Tom Crockett, of Stewart Island, and for several years Kekeno earned the reputation of being a profitable ship to work. , . Kekeno played a big part in the sa • vaging of the wreck of the Waikare, which struck a rock in Dusky Sound on January 2,1909, when a large party of excursionists were aboard. Several syndicates were floated to salvage the wreck, but in the end Tom Crockett and Tom Bragg acquired the whole,interest of the syndicates, taking over their liabilities. Kekeno was despatched to Dusky with the salvage crew and a diver from Sydney. Six weeks later Mr Bragg returned from the North Island and journeyed to the wreck- He found that work had not been started, and the diver had not donned his suit once for the £2 10s per day he was receiving. Then came a letter from a Sydney syndicate offering to purchase the wreck, as the diver bad reported that the Bluff syndicate could not make a success of it. _ The Sydney diver returned to Australia by the next boat, with a bad farewell. Diver Todd, of Port Chalmers, was engaged, and the ship Anna was vised ns the salvage boat. Much valuable machinery and fittings were removed from the Waikare, the- salvaging being a success. In 1920 the rights of further salvaging were purchased by Miller Bros,, of Port Chalmers, but the salvaging was’not persevered with. Kekeno came back to Bluff from Dusky, and shortly afterwards was sold by Mr Bragg, then the sole owner, to Frank Macdonald, of Invercargill. On his death his estate was sold up, and Kekeno was purchased by Irwin and Co. for use as a coal hulk at Bluff. Finis was apparently written to the end of the career of Kekeno. Next she was found careened on Leask’s Bay Beach, Stewart Island, and the Maori Beach Timber Co. purchased her. Her bow was altered, and her spars were shortened for the timber trade.

To-day Kekeno, near her end twice in nearly fifty years, still ploughs her way from Maori Beach, in Port William. the old sealing station, to Invercargill. She has an auxiliary engine now.

“Yes, she can still sail well, but what dirty’work!” exclaimed Carrol Hansen, who skippers the schooner when he is not at the helm of the fourteen-footer Murihikn, one day recently to a ‘Star’ reporter, as coal was being discharged at the wharf at, Halfmoon Bay- And Tom Bragg will tell how Kekeno was only headed by the tug Teresa Ward at the entrance of Halfmoon Bay after a race from the Bluff wharf. Those days are gone now I