INTERISLAND CROSSING
A COMPARISON OF SPEEDS Considering that, in the intervening 40 years, some of the world’s best engineers brains have devoted their knowledge to the designing and building of merchant ships, those who drew the lines of the old-time ships for the Wellington-Lyttelton run have nothing to be ashamed of, because subsequent vessels have hot improved greatly on the 1904 record of lOhr 32min established by the shapely Rotomahana, built in 1879, the first steel steamer and the first with compound engines in New Zealand waters.
The straight-stemmed Mararoa, built six years later, was never officially recorded as ctoing better than lOhr 58min, and that was when she was 41 years old. Earlier, however (says the Christchurch Star-Sun), the Maori had claimed the record with a trip of Bhr 42min on December 26, 1907. wharf to wharf, and that timi stood for 17 years, until the Wahine cut 21 minutes off it on December 24, 1924.' The Rangatira, built in 1930, 17 years later than the Wahine, is the present holder of the trip record, with a trip of Bhr Bmin on April 6. 1939, only 13 minutes better than the older ship's time, in a run o{ 174 nautical miles.
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Bibliographic details
Otago Daily Times, Issue 26226, 9 August 1946, Page 4
Word Count
202INTERISLAND CROSSING Otago Daily Times, Issue 26226, 9 August 1946, Page 4
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