REWA'S LAST VOYAGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20602, 28 June 1930, Page 14

REWA'S LAST VOYAGE.

DEPARTURE FROM HARBOUR

MIDNIGHT JOURNEY MADE.

TOWED TO ISLAND IN GULF. USE AS A BREAKWATER. 'A noblo relic of the palmy windjammer days left Auckland last night on a midnight voyage to her grave. The largest British-owned sailing ship afloat, tho fourmasted b'arque Rewa, weighed anchor as the clock in the Ferry Building tower chimed midnight, and, with hardly a sound but tho creaking of her partlydismantled spars, drifted out of tho harbour in tow of the tug To Awhina. This morning soon after daybreak tho grand old ship will bo run aground on a small island in the gulf, there to lie for another 50 years or more, serving tho unromantic uses of a harbour breakwater. On board was Captain R. Kennedy, her former master, resuming his old command for tho few brief hours the ship •was on her last journey. "It is no use crying over a foregone conclusion," said the veteran skipper, just prior to tho vessel's departure. "The old ship has !had her day and that is all there is to it. [Why pull a long faco and bo misorable ivbout it?" And away ho went whistling the very antithesis of tho storybook captain tearfully bewailing tho passing pf his ocean home. , Ship Not Fully Stripped. I a Others took the good ship's departure ' far less 'pbilosphically. Seafaring folk ,who knew the old sailer in her glorious days and thoso old salts who even in retirement feel drawn magnetically to the sea and all that pertains to it bemoaned tho passing of tho famous ship with genuino distress. Among thoso was tho watchman who has taken care of her >vhilo she has been laid up in tho stream, unwanted, these last eight years. Unfortunately, sickness prevented him from following tho. old ship to her gravo last flight, j . Tho Rewa is far from being a "stripped" ship. A certain amount of her fittings has been removed and her cabins aud corridors echo hollowly to tho tramp of sea boots, but her giant iron masts remain, as do the greater number of her spars, and the winches, hatches, rails, tho great capstan oil tho poop and even tho ship's bell—which, by tho way, bears the vessel's original name, the Alice A. Leigh. These are the property of the new owner, Mr.' Charles Hanson.Original Sails Unsold. Of particular interest are tho original tails, 75 of them, all in an excellent state of preservation, considering their years of service and the length of time they have been in stowage. They were extremely valuable when new, the large lower sails costing £350 and the others from,£3oo to £IOO. In 1926 they were sent to England for sale, but there is a rapidly-vanishing market for such things, and they failed to find a buyer. •In the officers' mess some fine mottled wood panelling attracts attention. Transported to the dining room or library of & city mansion it would be highly prized. The obsequies, performed under darkness, almost with secrecy, were unobserved from the shore. There was not even a bystander to watch the Harbour Board's tug get up steam at her berth a* tho end of Queen's Wharf and, at 11 p.m., cast off her berthing lines and put out in the direction of Chelsea Even the solitary riding light of the Rewa, gleaming uncertainly in the distance, conveyed nO inkling of what was in store. Anchor in Harbour Bed. A -few sharp orders and the tow was Iria.de fast and then, the Rewa's steam Winches not being in working order, the anchor/chain was slipped and buoyed. To raise that mas 3 of iron, three tons in weight, which has been embedded in the harbour bottom for so many years, would have been too big a task to complete at night/ There it will remain, with its 90 fathoms of chain, until it can be lifted and removed with the aid of a transport punt —the Rewa's last legacy to >he port that has mothered her- these last eight years. If anyone had been watching from the shore on so bleak and wintry a night, his curiosity might have been aroused toward midnight by the lowering of tho riding light, which, for eight years, has blinked regularly each night from the Rewa's foremast. At the same time the stern light was huftg out and red and green side-lights made their 'cheering appearance for the first time since the old ship's sailing days. But, alas! They .were illuminated for the last time. Beaching the Vessel.

Ifc seemed like the good old days as the fine old ship, her masts and spars looming starkly against the blackened sky, glided softly down the harbour, past tho coal hulks a.nd derelict steamers in "Rotten Row," in tho wako of tho sturdy tug. /Except the lone signalmen at Mount Victoria and the. King's Wharf signal tower and a watchmart or two on harbour hulks, not a soul saw her lights disappear round North Head as she made for the open sea Early this morning sho will arrive at her last resting-place, tho little-known Island of Moturekareka, between Kawau and the mainland.

If everything goes by plan the vessel "Will bo beached about seven o'clock this morning. The proceedings will bo watched by Captain A Davies, on behalf of tho Marine Department, and Captain Kennedy will represent the lato owners, G. H. Scales. Limited. It is not proposed to sink the vessel, but one or . two holes will bo made in the hull below waterline by the expedient of firing a charge of gelignite in each bilge, so allowing sufficient water to enter to steady the liulk as she lies on the sand. Very little water is expected to enter the holds When Auckland awakes this morning the familiar harbour landmark will have disappeared. People used to point her out with pride and focus their telescopes on her /tall tapering masts and tilted bowsprit, cherishing her appearance as they might an old friend whoso companionship they could not veiy well imagine themselves without. Now she has gono to an ignominious resting-place, her brave past forgotten, her unwanted shell thrown unceremoniously to the tender mercies of the sea, the pitiless sun and tho impersonal scrutiny of the screaming gulls.