Wakakura For Tasman Trade

Northern Advocate, 16 June 1947, Page 5

Wakakura For Tasman Trade

(Special) AUCKLAND, This Day. The former minesweeper Wakakura is to be converted into an insulated cargo carrier and will take frozen produce from New Zealand to Sydney, returning with oranges and other citrus fruits in demand in the Dominion.

The vessel has been purchased by an Auckland syndicate of Merchant Navy officers and men. The chairman of directors of the new venture (Captain W. Clough Blair) stated that the purchase from the War Assets Realisation Board would be completed this week.

There are 15 returned servicemen in the syndicate, three of them with foreign-going master’s certificates, and the Wakakura’s complement has been selected from specialists in each department of ship work. The vessel is being purchased with the syndicate's own capital, but each man is obtaining a rehabilitation loan to cover the refit.

The master will be Captain F. A. Barrett, who has served for 10 years in the explosives auxiliary schooner Huia as first mate and relieving master and also as master of the ketch Miro. His chief officer will be Mr L. B. Lindsay, formerly chief officer of the ketch New Golden Hind and the motor-ship Port Tauranga, and master of the motor-vessel Ranui. EQUAL SHARES The second officer will be Mr R. H. Gibson, who was a prisoner of war in Japanese hands after the wartime capture of the Hauraki. Mr W. B. Douglas, an acting engineer lieutenant-commander in the Navy during the war and for many years a chief engineer with the Canterbury Steam Shipping Company, Ltd., will be chief engineer. Captain Blair will be shore superintendent and relieving master. He was an officer with the Union Steam Ship Company Ltd., for many years, and he recently resigned his post as shipping inspector for the Health Department at Auckland.

] The eight crew members will all {have an equal share in the syndicate. | The accountant and the solicitor for ) the company,, both returned serviceImen. will each hold a half-share.