A CHEQUERED CAREER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21733, 26 August 1932, Page 7

A CHEQUERED CAREER

OLD BARQUE FELICITAS r VESSEL’S INGLORIOUS END. . Stripped of all her past array of stately masts and billowing canvas, a stately sailing ship of the early eighties and nineties, then known as the barque Eelicitas, is about to pass into the limbo of forgotten things in Otago Harbour. But she is not quite forgotten. There are probably some old sailormen still in the land of the living who can recall a mental picture of tlm old ship when she sailed the seven seas in all her past glory of towering masts and white sails spread to the breeze. The fact remains, however, that the Eelicitas ended her days of service nearly 30 years ago. and she will pass unnoticed in a manner of speaking, and her once stout timbers will be scattered over Mussel. HayLittle is known of the very , early history of the Eelicitas, as the great majority of the sailormen who may have been associated with her have passed oyer the Great Divide. Still there are a few still living in the Dominion who can recall the ship’s first appearance in New Zealand waters, but few, if any, of them possess any reliable information concerning her very early history. It is known among those who have been associated with shipping at the principal Dominion ports for the past 40 years or so that the Eelicitas went ashore near Suva in the early part of the present ceatury. She was subsequently refloated and towed to Auckland, where she was repaired and it is believed that the ship subsequently sailed from Auckland to Newcastle. At any rate, reliable records show that the Eelicitas loaded a cargo of coal at Newcastle some time in 1003. She sailed from the New South Wales port for South America, but did not reach her destination, as she put into Wellington in a leakinrr condition. The vessel was anchored off Kaiwarra for about two years, and was then purchased by the Union Steam Ship Company. The Felicitas was dismantled at Wellington towards the end of 1905. and was then towed to Port Chalmers by the Union Company’s old cargo steamer Hawjca, which arrived at the Otago port with the dismantled barque on the evening of December 31, 1905. , . .

Her sailing career ended, the Eelicitas was stripped of surplus gear and was used as a coal bulk in the harbour up to a few months ago, serving her purpose well for nearly 27 years. A start was made some months ago to strip the Eelicitas as she lay at the dock head at Port Chalmers by removing the timbers to within a few feet of the water line. The work, which is still in progress. is being carried out by .a number of relief workers. They have found tinship’s timbers perfectly sound. The material will be used in tiie construction of retaining walls in connection with (lie reclamation scheme at Mussel Bay. The hull will eventually be completely -broken up. and so in a very short period another sailing vessel of what the real sailormen term “the good old days of sail will pass into complete oblivion. The Eclicita.-. will only be following in the wake of scores of others of her kind. The Felicitas was built at Quebec it 1874. She was of 754 tons gross register while her length was 163 feet, breadth 32 feet 4 inches, fuel depth 20 feet.