STRIPPING THE TALUNE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LI, Issue 16872, 29 October 1925, Page 3

STRIPPING THE TALUNE.

ENGINES A HEAP OP SOHAP. Lying at tho Railway wharf with blank port-holes and wrecked decks (states tho Auckland Star), the Talunc rather reminds one of an eyeless skull. Aud once she Was tho pride of her owners, and officers and men had for her tho feeling that is so like the attitude of a mother to her child.

Tho Talunc left the launching ways thirty-four years ago and floated on tho bosom of the Forth. To-day her rusty plates are dry us an old discarded kerosene tin in the back yard, the thick paint, once the familiar olive green with yellow streak, peeling off Where Dio sun caught her most. Weeds and barnacles have flourished famously on her .bottom during the five years she has lain, up tho harbor, dcgcneifttod into a coal store bin.

Every scrap of woodwork is being stripped from tho inside of the old steamer. Her decks, .which must fyaye been rclaid more than oiicc since she left, the Forth on her maiden trip in .1891, aro of kauri, but most of tho other timber was grown many thousands of miles from New Zealand. Tho panelling of the saloon came partly from tho Baltic, and the oak probably grow on British soil. It is All as dry As tinder, and tho man who bought it jit auction sale for a few shillings should do well, even if he merely uses it for firewood.

If you should ask after the good, honest engines that drove her thousands and thousands of miles during jho past thirty-four years, you will be pointed out a heap of shards, Something like fifty tons of scrap iron and steel will be absorbed by the local ironfounders, and tho excellent material the Scots engineers put into the 30b will be reincarnated and start off On another life.

Every scrap of brass, including the pins of the portholes, lias been cut out of the ship, and now lies in a heap in Iho hold, waiting to be sent to the brassfounders.

Much of the stuff that is taken out pf the ship is still us good as now, thanks to the excellent workmanship of the British engineers and smiths. When the Talune is entirely stripbed the hull will bo filled with concrete, and sunk to make a breakwater at Wnikokopu. •