SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 38, 14 October 1871, Page 10

SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE.

arrived OCTOBEE. 7, Falcon, ketch, 37 tons, Morrison, from Blenheim. Passengers Messrs Harrison, Smith, Kelly, Averny. 10, Tararua, s.s., 523 tons, Hagley, from Eelbourne, via West Coast. 11, Wanganui, s.s., 164 tons.Linklater, from Wanganui. Passengers—Mrs Meredith, Miss Mack, Major Durie, Mrs Woon, Mr and Mrs Day and four children, Miss M'William, Mr and Mrs Williams, Messrs Barr, G-illigan, Bromley, Bent, Buckley, Feuillade, Searrell, and three in the steerage. 12, Elizabeth, 33 tons, Short, from Queen Charlotte’s Sound. SAILED. 7, Alarm, ketch, Callow, for the Coast. 7, Glimpse, ketch, 37 tons, Croucher, for Napier. 7, Amateur, 25 tons, Nosgrove, for Blenheim. 7, Go-Ahead, s.s., 84 tons, Doile, for Wanganui. 9, Falcon, schooner, 37 tons, Morrison, for Wairau. Passengers —Mr Jackson and Mr Harrison. 11, Tararua, s.s., 522 tons, Hagley. for Melbourne via Lyttelton, Otago, and the Bluff. Passengers—Messrs Bray, McDonald, Tailored, Knight, Abbott, Barr, Bell, Brodie, Fisher, Mrs M‘Mahon. The following is the record of shipping arrivals and departures of New Zealand vessels, as received by the Suez mail:—Arrived from New Zealand ports —Cyrene, Queen Bee, Warrior 'Queen, Zealander, Farningham. Sailed for New Zea’and—Gamble, Peter Denny, Young Australian, Chili, Robert Henderson. Loading for New Zealand, thirteen. There are no less than eight different acts in this colony relating to shipping and marine affairs. Most of these acts have evidently been copied from the Imperial Merchant Shipping Acts of 1854 and 1862, and experience has shown that they are most faulty where they differ most widely from the text of these acts. Mr Seed, in his Marine Department report, says It would be exceedingly desirable to have all these laws consolidated ; but’ before doing this it would be prudent to wait until the bill which is now before the Imperial Parliament for amending and consolidating the merchant shipping laws has passed, and then to adopt that act as a model for a comprehensive measure for regulating all matters relating to shipping in the colony, which are subject to local control and supervision. The Inman Company’s steamer City of Brussels, Captain Kennedy, which reached the Mersey on July 17, has made one of the quickest passages on record from New York to Liverpool. This vessel left New York about eleven o’clock on the morning of the Bth, and pissed the Fastnet in a dense fog on July 16 at half-past six o’clock. The City of Brussels arrived off the bar at Liverpool on July 17, at four o’clock in the afternoon, but was detained for some hours waiting for water to take her .over.

REFITTING- OF THE RANGATIRA. The boiler for the Rangatira, which we noticed in a recent number of this paper, was successfully shipped on board the vessel on Saturday last. The time occupied in removing it from Mr Seager’s factory was one day and part of another, and the means adopted for its removal was a moveable tramway and a trolley. The boiler is a seventy-horse power, weighs fifteen tons, and is the largest that has yet been made in New Zealand. It is constructed of the best materials, the tube plates, furnaces, and combustion chambers being all Lowmoor iron. There are 175 tubes in the boiler, and the furnaces are round, which is a considerable improvement, as it does away with the necessity of having stays in the furnaces to support them. The bottom of the boiler is made of half-inch plate iron, and double rivetted ; and the other portion of tho shell is 7-16ths. The up-take is also made of 7-16ths plate iron. The boiler is well stayed with angle and inch and a half bar iron stays. The boiler was tested with cold water to a pressure of 401bs to the square inch, and everything proved satisfactory. We understand that the boiler has been manufactured ia Wellington at a less cost than it could be procured from England or the Australian Colonies, and is allowed by competent judges to be a first-class piece of workmanship. The boiler is being lowered into its berth by means of screws, and will be completed to-day. The Rangatira is undergoing an extensive overhaul, having new decks laid fore and aft. Her cabins have been pulled down and re-arranged, her lining taken up, and her hull thoroughly cleaned and painted. The poop deck has been extended eighteen feet, which will increase her carrying capacity some twenty-eight tons; the fore-hold has also been enlarged, and this will give some fifteen tons more room for freight. Her engines are having a thorough overhaul, and she is to be fitted with a new shaft, and a new propeller, and, when finished, will be a better boat than when she was first launched, having increased accommodation and being superior for the trade on this coast to what she ever was-.- When completed, she will have to be taken to Dunedin to be docked, for the purpose of being cleaned and painted. This is not as it should be. That a place, which can produce skilled labor, not only to repair steamboats but to build them and manufacture their machinery, should be compelled to proceed to other ports for the purpose of docking, is a disgrace to the enterprise of the shipping community. Our harbor is acknowledged to be one of the finest in the southern hemisphere, offering superior advantages for the erection of a floating dock, and yet from our supineness we lose a,ll the advantages that would accrue from

having one here. A floating dock capable of taking up the Halcione would only cost some £BOOO ; the greater part of the material can be procured in the province, we have the skilled labour, and yet we do not take "advantage of it, but are content to send our vessels to other ports to be cleaned, and let the money that would otherwise be spent in Wellington be expended in other places. The annual loss to Wellington is something considerable. If we had a dock, vessels would not pass here to go to Dunedin, nor would we be compelled to send our own there to be docked ; if we had a floating dock, the probability is that the Marine Department would require the attendance of steam boats from the different ports here every six months, for a periodical survey, instead of being compelled, as at present, to send their surveyor all over the colony to inspect the vessels. A short time ago a few gentlemen interested themselves in getting up a company, and we understood that they met with considerable success. The matter has now been allowed to lie in abeyance for a considerable time, for some reason or other ; but we trust the pressing importance of the undertaking will induce the parties to take the matter again in hand, and bring it to a successful conclusion. THE NEBRASKA AT MELBOURNE. The presence of the large side-wheel steamer Nebraska, of the Pacific Mail line, was by no means ignored during her brief stay in Hobson’s Bay. Up to the time of her casting off from the pier, she was like a human hive with the crowds pouring in and out of her and swarming all over; and when she steamed away, the concourse of people on the railway pier was something considerable. Prior to her departure a very large company of gentlemen, representing the commercial and marine interests of the port, and also several members of Parliament and others, assembled on board and partook of luncheon, which was served in truly excellent style. Shortly after the time announced for her departure this “ stranger” steamer, of immense proportions and singular construction, moved swiftly away at the instigation of her powerful beam engines, and headed for Queenscliff at a surprising rate. She took several passengers, and a quantity of cargo, and also a small mail. At the luncheon, in reply to the coast of his health, Captain Harding said—l am happy to meet you citizens of this prosperous community here to-day. This ship has been sent in the hope of opening up a commerce between San Francisco and the chief cities of Australia. This ship may be new to you gentlemen here, but she is an old affair to us. It is not an old ship, however, but an old style, we have here. I myself have had ten years’ experience in ships of this style. I have been them in all weathers, and I know what they will do. The Nebraska is essentially an American steamship, and one of a successful class. This style is the style of American steamships, and is the one which we have adopted after twenty years’ experience in the carrying of passengers. We run the same ships in the China waters. I have been in the China trade, and I would not ask for a better ship in the worst of weather. I find that a great many people who have seen this style of ship for the first time ask whether they roll badly—whether it is possible that they could stand the tempestuous weather of the Atlantic F These are the best ships for tempestuous weather. We build our ships with the idea of keeping them as much above water as possible. (Laughter and cheers.) A very good idea. (Cheers) We build our vessels so that the sea shall never break over the top of them ; when the sea strikes them heavily they give to it, and are not washed like a half-tide rock. (Captain Harding concluded amid loud cheers.) THE LOSS OF THE TROOP-SHIP MEG2ERA. The arrival or the P. and O. Company’s steamer Malacca at Melbourne with the relief crews which were embarked originally in the Megsera puts us in possession of an exact account of the loss of the latter ship. A leak was found on the 9th June, and on the 17th Captain Thrupp ran the vessel ashore on the island of St Paul’s. An examination of the vessel showed that there was a hole through a plate 7ft from the keel. Other plates were worn thin. The vessel was pronounced unfit to proceed on her voyage. All hands and a large quantity of stores and baggage were safely landed, with some trouble. On the 16th July the Dutch ship Aurora bore down to the island. The master had been struck with the appearance of a tree on the cliffs where trees had never been seen before, and a near view showed it to be a flagstaff with the ensign Union down. The Aurora (not an open boat) took Lieut. Jones to Sourabaya, and the news of the loss was thus telegraphed to England : —“ From Fraser, Consul, Batavia, August 5. —Leak reported about June 8. Kept under for several days by hand pumps. Leak increased ; steam then used.; water kept under. Insufficient coal to reach Australia; steered for St Paul’s. June 17 anchored. Survey held ; diver employed; reported unsafe to proceed ; hole through bottom ; landed provisions; weather stormy; lost three anchors. June 19, ship was run on the bar full speed and filled. Lieutenant Jones left July 16, all well; men under canvas; 80 tons cargo saved.” A correspondent of “ The Times,” August 5, sends the following account ©f the remarkable island on which the ship was grounded:—“ I visited the island on an outward-bound voyage some years since, and although it was then uninhabited and barren, it still offers the means of sustaining life by means of the abundance of fish to be found in the Crater Basin. This remarkable basin is about two miles in circuit, and has thirty fathoms of water in the middle, which depth is maintained until within 50ft of the shore. The rocks round the crater rise to 600 ft or 700 ft high, and the view from the summit is

very impressive. All round the edges of the basin smoke was rising amid the stones lining the shore, indicating that smouldering fires still lurked below. On landing, we found the water on the shore of the crater in some places too hot to permit our hands remaining in it for any length of time. The temperature by thermometer in the hottest part was 204 deg. Great fun was created by catching fish at on 9 end of our boat, and, without taking them off the hook, letting them drop into the hot water, and cooking them.” The whole party were removed from the island on the sth September. Tney were on short provisions, until the arrival of the Aurora made io certain that they would be removed withiu a short period. Not a man wa9 lost during the stay on the island. The transhipment of the crews is to take place at Sydney.