FRENCH SLOOP

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23516, 2 June 1938, Page 6

FRENCH SLOOP

RIGAULT DE GENOUILLY ARRIVAL AT DUNEDIN N AN INTERESTING VISITOR Smart and trim in her gleaming white paint, the French sloop Rigault de Genouilly, which has been visiting the principal New Zealand ports in the course of a cruise in the Southern Pacific, arrived at Dunedin yesterday morning and berthed at the Birch street wharf. Leaving Aka roa at,4 p.m. on Tuesday she made a good trip down the coast and arrived off the ' Otago Heads at daylight yesterday, , the task of piloting her up the channel being carried out by Captain F. G. MacDonald. This is the first time since March, 1928,, when a short visit was paid by the sloop Cassiopee, that a warship flying the tricolour of France has berthed in Dunedin waters. Although slightly larger than the sloops Leith and Wellington on the New Zealand station, the Rigault de Genouilly has several features in common with those vessels, her main point of difference being that, as she is stationed in the tropics, her topsides and superstructure are painted white, which gives her a distinctly yacht-like appearance, The round of official visits connected with the ship was commenced at 9.30 a.m., when the French Consular Agent (Mr S D. Neill), called on the commander of the sloop, Captain de Cory Plante. Captain Plante and Mr Neill later visited the chairman of the Otago Harbour Board (Mr W. Begg), and received calls from the commander of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (Commander F. Fraser), and officers of the Otago Military District. At 11 a.m. Captain Plante called on the Mayor (Mr A. H. Allen) and members of the Civic Committee at the Town Hall, and was afterwards received by the president of the Otago Officers’ Club and the Otago branch of the Navy League. Official calls were later returned, and Captain Plante was entertained by the French Consular Agent at lunch, where he met members of the Consular Corps. ''' A brief ceremony took place at the Cenotaph in the Queen’s Gardens during the afternoon,, when Captain Plante, accompanied by Enseigne Nay, one of his officers, the Mayor, and Mr Neill, placed at the foot of the memorial a wreath as a tribute from the ship to the men who fell in the Great War. Although special facilities for the entertainment of the ship’s officers and men have been granted by the Dunedin City Corporation, the managements of the various picture theatres, the Otago A. and P. Society, the Dunedin Jockey Club, and the golf clubs in the city, the only official arrangements made up to the present time are a dance, for the ship’s company, which will be held in the Town Hall Concert Chamber to-night, and a small-bore rifle shooting contest with the R.N.V .R. The Rigault de Genouilly will remain at Dunedin until June 6, when she will sail direct for Tahiti. The vessel will be open for public inspection from 2 to 4.30 p.m. on Saturday.