COASTAL BOAT SOLD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22139, 19 June 1935, Page 10

COASTAL BOAT SOLD

THE STEAMER GUNBAR USE IN AUSTRALIAN TRADE LONG PERIOD OF IDLENESS The Richardson Company's steamer Gunbar has been sold to Australian buyers and is to leave for Sydney in a few weeks to trade on the Australian coast. The vessel has been in New Zealand waters for nearly nine years and during half that period has been Ivinc idle in Auckland Harbour. She is a twin-screw vessel of 482 tons and was built at Ardrossan, Scotland, in 1911 for the North Coast Steam Navigation Company, Sydney. She ran in the Sydney-North Coast ports of Australia trade for nearly 14 years until she was too small for the service. The Gunbar was later sold to New Zealand buyers and reached Auckland from Port Stephens on October 10, 1926. Afterwards she traded from Auckland to East Coast bays, Gisborne and Napier, under the service of the Gunbar Shipping Company, of Hastings. About the middle of July, 1929, she was purchased by the Richardson Shipping Company, which continued to employ her in the same trade for a short period until the shipping depression necessitated the withdrawal of a considerable number of vessels trading in New Zealand waters.

SCRAP METAL FOR JAPAN TWO SMALL STEAMERS END OF THE AHURIRI The two small steamers Kurnalpi and Ahuriri have been sold for scrap metal, and are to be broken up to be despatched to Japan by the Union Company's steamer Kaitoke, which has been sold to Japanese buyers for scrapping. The Ahuriri is an iron steamer of 85 tons, and was built at Wellington in 1887. After being used in the coastal trade for a considerable period she was converted into a trawler and was used for fishing until she was laid up some years ago. The Kurnalpi was built at Christiania, Norway, in 1903, and her former name was Heina. After being owned by the Melbourne Steamship Company and running for some years in the Australian coastal trade, she came to New Zealand, having been bought to trade from Auckland to northern and west coast ports of the North Island. She reached Auckland from Sydney in January, 1926, but her sea-going career in New Zealand waters lasted only five months. She made a couple of trips to northern ports and one to the South Island. Then she was ordered to be sold by public tender. The vessel never went to sea again, and after lying idle in Judge's Bay for 12 months she was sold in July, 1927, to shipbreakers, who stripped her of all her machinery and fittings of value before her hull was taken the following year to Ponui Island, Hauraki Gulf, where it has been used as a breakwater ever since. The hull will be towed to Auckland shortly to be broken up.