DREDGE 222

Evening Star, Issue 26011, 28 January 1947, Page 6

DREDGE 222

ANNIVERSARY OF ARRIVAL January 26 marked the sixty-fifth anniversary of the arrival of Dredge 222 at Port Chalmers. This vessel, which gave ; 50 years valuable service to the Otago Harbour Board before she was superseded by the present dredge Otakau, is now a sunken hulk forming part . of . the breakwater at the Mole, at the entrance of the Otago Harbour. ... Built in 1881 by. Messrs Simons and Co., at Renfrew, Scotland, . Dredge 222, of 502 gross tons, arrived at Port Chalmers in 1882, anp her first operawas to dredge the harbour entrance at the Mole. She was found unsuitable for this task, but she'was responsible, for effecting improvements to ‘the Victoria Channel and the channel at . the approach to the Port Chalmers wharves. In 1931, when she dredged the rock broken by a blast in the channel between Goat and Quarantine Islands, she' performed her last service for the Otago Harbour Board. With the arrival of the Otakau from Scotland the same year, Dredge 222 was laid lip. ,and , occupied ? moorings on the Pelichet. foreshore.. In 1934 she was sold to a gold mining conceru which proposed to use her on the Molyneux River,' •;. .. • \ i SCRAP SOLD TO JAPAN. Th.e venture failed, and in 1936 she was taken out .of the harbour by Messrs D. G. McKay 'and W. Borlase, who broke her up for scrap metal. Sonie of, tlie, scrap was sent to Japan and the' remainder .whs distributed among local foundries. Having been stripped' of' all her useful fittings Dredge 222 was towed to the scene of Her former labours and blown up and sunk. Apart from her service with the Otago Harbour Board, she was used on the Yarra River, and at Wellington, Lyttelton, and Oamaru.