STEAMER'S GRAVE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19959, 30 May 1928, Page 8

STEAMER'S GRAVE.

END OF THE BOTOMAHANA FIFTY USEFUL YEARS. VESSEL'S PROUD HISTORY. MEMORIES OF AN OFFICER. Outside the port of Melbourne, whicl she had known for 50 years, the Roto mahana, pride of the southern seas it her heighday, -was sent to her grave yes terday. Many a sailor and thousand! of people who have travelled in the ship that was more than a little ahead of hei time, were present in spirit at tht obsequies., for a ship has a soul, and th< gallant Rotomahana almost had a personality. The peoples she served regarded her affectionately as their own, and sh« bore her honours with high dignity. There was less change in the shipping ;world in the days of her prime, and numbers of men remained in her foi years. Among them was Captain Daniel McLean, one of the grand old men oi the Union Company service, who as master of the hospital ship Maheno, which evacuated 7000 wounded from Gallipoli, is held in high esteem throughout the landFor eight years he served in the Rotomahana, when she was in the intercolonial run, rising from fourth mate to chief officer, and she was the ship of ships to him. "I saw her first in '79, in the English Channel," said Captain McLean yesterday. "I was in the Taranaki, one of Patrick Henderson's sailing ships, homeward bound from Timaru deep laden with wheat. Carrying stun-sails on each side, we had passed everything in sight until this brigantine-rigged steamer came up and left us standing. It was the Rotomahana on her way from the Dumbarton stocks to London to load for 'Australia. The London newspapers, 1 remember, described her as the first steel ship and the fastest ocean-going vessel in the world. The Orient, which had been built at Glasgow about the same time, being the largest." There is no doubt as to the Rotomahana's place in the steel era. She was built of mild steel. Before her, steamers were of iron or oi iron-frame and teak planking. She was the first of her kind, reflecting the intensely progressive enterprise of James Mills, head of the company. There is no truth in the statement that she had been built as a steam yacht. The order was direct to Denny's from the Union Steam Ship Company. Memories of Men. At London, she was chartered by the Orient Line to take passengers to Melbourne, where she arrived on September 2, 1879. Her master was Captain T. Underwood, -who afterwards went to England to superintend the building of the New Zealand Shipping Company's first steamers. His first officer was Mr. Parsons, afterwards shipping master in Melbourne. Captain Popham, who is living in Devon, was second officer. Mr. McKegg, who is still living in Glasgow at the age of 83, was chief engineer; Mr. McAlister, of Sydney, was junior engineer; and Mr. McNicol, now of Wellington, was chief steward. Others who have been associated with her are Mr. T. Birch, of Parnell, who was purser for many years; Captain A. Duder, formerly Auckland harbourmaster, who was third,'second and chief officer in turn, and, of course, Captain Michael Carey, who, after long service in her as master, took over the Monowai in the San Francisco run. Others who may be better remembered in Anstralia were Mr. Colquhon and Mr. Tickel, wlho became captain and commander resnectively in •what was then known 'as the Victorian Navy. Seventeen Knots. With six boilers and engines far above Ihe usual standard for a comparatively small vessel, she could do 17 knots. Soon after she started in the intercolonial run only four boilers were used, but she was easily able to maintain a speed of 15 knots. Once she raced the Arawa from Hobart to B'luff and tssrfig five boilers won by half-an-hour. Qn another occasion, she engaged in a race from New Zealand to Australia with one of the American Pacific boats—the Sierra, Captain McLean thinks—and was beaten, but at Sydney the chief engineer of the Sierra came on board to find out how so small a ship could have set him such a pace. He was astonished at the power. Early Adventures. Happy is the country that has no history, and so might it be said of a ship if history is reckoned in adventures. But although the Rotomahana had a long life and died of old age, she had several close calls in her early daV3. On the first occasion she came to Auckland, toward the end of 1879, she took excursionists to Great Barrier, and at the entrance to her island harbour she struck a rock, but sustained no damage of any consequence. !At all events, she did not dock, because tliere was no dock in Auckland. -Not long afterwards, she went ashore at Wainapa Point, outside Blnff, where the Tararaa was lost, but was refloated. Her stern-post, however, carried away, and in this condition she limped into Port Chalmers, where she was repaired, the forge then made by Messrs. Morgan and Cable being the largest job of the kind so far done in New Zealand. The same year—lßß3 or thereabouts—she grounded at Bluff, about a cable and a-half from the .wharf, the tide having caught her as she was berthing. The value of mild steel in steamers' hulls was then demonstrated, for although she was deeply dented, she was not holed. This was the last of her troubles. She sailed the seas for more than 40 years without a mishap to herself, although on one occasion when she was running in the Well-incton-Lyttelton ferry service she ran down a schooner in Wellington harbour. Intercolonial Run. For years she remained in the intercolonial service, which did the "horseshoe" running from Sydney to Auckland, down the, east coast. to Bluff, and then to Hobart and Melbourne, returning by the same route to Sydney, when she doubled back again and made the New Zealand trip from the north. Later, she was with the Mararoa in the ferry service, and when the traffic became too large for her accommodation she entered the Launceston-Melhourne service, in which she ended her davs. "She was a fine ship in every respect," said Captain McLean. "She could maintain 15 knots with two in reserve. She provided comfort a little ahead of the times, notwithstanding the fact that when she was built she had no electric ligbj. She was good in a head sea. You could drive her without shipping much water." The captain looked into the past and his eyes seemed to say that he had lost a friend of a lifetime.