FATE OF THE WANAKA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19658, 9 June 1927, Page 10

FATE OF THE WANAKA.

ALL FITTINGS REMOVED. FINAL DISPOSAL UNCERTAIN. CAREER OF FORTY YEARS. After being for three months in the hands of the shipbreakers the ex-Union Company steamer Wanaka was berthed at King's Wharf yesterday to have all her salvaged fittings landed. The work will occupy about three days and the shell of the vessel will then be disposed of. The Wanaka was recently offered to tho Navy Department as a target to be sunk by gunfire, but owing to the fact that two of the warships are at present in the Islands the offer was declined. The Public Works Department is now considering the question of using the vessel as a breakwater at an East Coast port, in the same manner as the department did with the Talune at Waikokopu. If she is not used as a breakwater the Wanaka wiil be towed outside the limits of the Hauraki Gulf and sunk in deep water. The Wanaka's sea career lasted 39 years, and the vessel was then laid up for 12 months in " Rotten Row" in Auckland Harbour. At tho beginning ot March sho was sold to Messrs. Borlase and McKay, shipbreakers, of Dunedin, who have scrapped a number of the Union Company's old steamers. During the past three months, while tho vessel has been at her moorings off Ponsonby, the shipbreakers have been busy in dismantling the machinery and stripping the hull of all metal and other fittings of any value. The salvaged material is all stacked on deck and in the hold ready to be hoisted on -the wharf and sold.