OLD PILOT STEAMER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22393, 14 April 1936, Page 5

OLD PILOT STEAMER

GUARDIAN OF SYDNEY HEADS REPLACING BY MODERN SHIP The most famous vessel in Australia, and the oldest pilot steimer in commission in the world, the Captain Cook, is nearing the end of an epic careerPlans and specifications of her successor have been completed, and tenders will bo called in Australia within the next few weeks for the new pilot steamer. For 42 years the Captain Cook has been the shipping guardian at Port Jackson Heads and her familiar graceful lines have greeted new arrivals to Sydney. Within 12 months she will have been withdrawn, and the bronze figurehead of the master mariner at her bows, whose name she bears, will grace the bows of another Captain Cook.

The Maritime Services Board has decided that the identity of the old pilot steamer will never be wholly lost jto Sydney. The new ship will have the same sweeping, graceful lines as her predecessor, but will incorporate all the modern devices known to maritime engineering, including echo sounding machines and radio telephone. The present Captain Cook is the" second pilot vessel to bear the historic name. Her. predecessor was a wooden ship, the first steam pilot vessel in the world, which was withdrawn after many years' useful service. The second Captain Cook was built at Morts Dock, launched on December 6, 1893, and commissioned early in the following year. She has seen the most eventful 'years in the history of Sydney, has watched transition from sail to steam, and, more recently, the gradual displacement of steam by motor ships, welcomed royalty and foreign navies, and escorted to the harbour palatial liners with the same quiet efficiency as she has welcomed drab and rusty tramps.

For decades the Captain Cook has been on duty 24 hours each day. Although gales and cyclones have raged about the Heads, and ocean-going liners have been compelled to remain in the shelter of Port Jackson, never «once during her long career have the seas been too tempestuous for the small pilot ship, and she has weathered storms that have wrecked many more staunchly-built vessels.

In 1911, when the steamer Rosedale was reported missing, the Captain Cook scoured the Tasman Sea as far north as Lord Howe Island. The following year she was sent speeding to South Solitary Island, with a doctor and nurse, taking aid to the lighthouse, where a child was ill with typhoid. The vessel arrived too late, and the lighthouse keeper was found soldering together a galvanised iron coffin. There was not sufficient soil on the island in which to bury the child. The vessel later was present at Jervis Bay, when Captain's Point was transferred to the Commonwealth.