CAPTAIN D. M'DOUGALL

Evening Star, Issue 21581, 29 November 1933, Page 12

CAPTAIN D. M'DOUGALL

SEAFARING NEW ZEALANDER RETIRES WITH FINE RECORD Captain D. M'Dougall, harbourmaster at Timaru, piloted his last ship, the Rotorua, into that port this week. After a lifetime amongst ships, and with a lino record to his credit, he is severing his connection with the sea. The evening of his active life will flow smoothly on a farm at Temuka, where logarithms will not disturb the passing days, nor the piloting of ships break through and steal the relaxation of the watch below. Captain M'Dougall joined his first ship as a deck boy, and left his last ship as a harbourmaster.

Rorn at Lyttelton in 1868. and educated at the local Borough School, young M'Dougall then went into the office of Cuff and Graham, ship and insurance, agents. After four years on that fringe of adventure, he took potluck and ran away to sea. From deck boy on a sailing craft he quickly qualified as an A.B. Still in pursuit of adventure he shipped for England, and after twelve months’ crossing of the Western Ocean on an emigrant and other ships trading between Groat Britain and North America, he returned to New Zealand on the small steamer Brunner, which in after years did good work in the Lyttelton-West Const trade. After a spell in schooners on the coast, young M'Dougall took to deep water again. On returning from a voyage from London to Calcutta, and back, he joined the new steamer Monowai, bound for New Zealand. To avoid the strike conditions existing in the period of the ’9O strike, he returned to “ sail ” and after trading in the China Seas returned via the West Coast of South America to Australia, passed as second mate, and entered the intercolonial trade.

After qualifying as master mariner Captain M'Dougall joined the Union Steam Ship Company as able seaman. Rising to command he was master of the To Anau, Hawea, Corinua, and other vessels. Resigning from that company he joined the Otago Harbour Hoard’s pilot service as junior pilot. Four years later he became senior pilot, and after fifteen and a-half years in that capacity resigned in December 1917 to take the responsible, position of harbour master at Timaru, from which position ho is now retiring on superannuation. During thirty-one and a-half years of piloting Captain M'Dougall had no accident, which in itself is a remarkable, if not unique, record. While in the service of the Otago Harbour Board he had odd experiences, such as the piloting inwards of “lame ducks” in quest of repairs and restoration to seaworthiness. These included the s.s. Indrabarrah after being ashore on the Foxton beach; the s.s. Knight of the Garter after her serious misadventure at the Bluff, and the French barque Bosiquct. Tlic impulsive master of that barque, instead of waiting outside Taiaroa Heads for a pilot, stood right in under full sail. Instead of making the harbour he landed her on a sandbank. After she grounded the sails were left unfurled. She swung round, was taken aback and heeled over in a nasty predicament. Pilot M'Dougall, then stationed at the Heads pilot station, went on board and experienced some difficulty in restoring order. Eventually tbo crew was induced to man the braces, and the yards were with difficulty braced round. The sail filled, she floated off, and it was dark when the pilot dropped her anchors in the cross channel for the night. In 1915 Captain M'Dougall piloted the steamer Hurumii, 197 ft 8.P.. to Dunedin, and that performance is said to have since been twice exceeded—in the case of the Cornwall, one-tenth of a foot longer.