ANOTHER MINESWEEPER

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLX, Issue 14839, 10 September 1941, Page 3

ANOTHER MINESWEEPER

LAUNCHED OX CAITKMATA

SHIP BUILDING POSSIBILITY

Electric Telegranh—Press Association AUCKLAND. This Day.

A fortnight after tin- launching of the minesweeper Hinau, her sister ship. Rimu. was sent down the slipway to-day. after being christened with a bottle of New Zealand wine, by Mrs Parry, wife of Commodore Parry, Chief of the Naval Staff. Like that of the Hinau, it was a perfect launch, the stout steel and wooden vessel sliding slowly into the Waitemata, where it was picked up by a tug and towed to the fitting out basin. A sprig 0 f rata was at the bow, and as the ship gathered speed down the greased ways the New Zealand Ensign and the Union Jack and White Ensign broke out aboard and cheers from a. large crowd while the National Anthem was played. Commodore Parry congratulated all associated with the construction and launching of the ship. Referring to the fact that Auckland had a substantial shipbuilding industry in the past and that although steel had superseded wood there was no reason why larger ships of war and also commercial vessels when the war was over could not be built in the Dominion. Quoting the case of Japan,, he added tlyit the absence of iron should not be a bar as there was plenty of it available in Australia, and he hoped New Zealand firms would fake advantage of the opportunity.