PIONEER FERRY STEAMER

Southland Times, Issue 17627, 16 April 1914, Page 2

PIONEER FERRY STEAMER

STORY OP THE ANTRIM. FORTY-FIVE year? on lake WAKATIPU. A .SHIPWRIGHT’S REMINESCEXCES. Unheeded by the season's stream of tourists, there lies moored at the wharf at the foot of Queenstown’s main street the black hull of the old lake steamer, Antrim. Tourists, honeymooners and invalids loan over the esplanade railings watching spangled trout dart backward and forward in search of food in the crystal waters of the shallows, but. save for the big paddle wheels which sometimes attract the attention of a visitor from some city where such thiiyrs are seldom seen the Antrim and her historic career might belong to another era. Joint Ruskln once wrote to the honour of a battered and unheeded hull of a sailing boat, sunk deep in the sands of a beach, an essay which now lives as one of the most aspiring of his works, and the writer lias to confess to having remembered the essay and drawn inspiration from it when the Antrim’s story was told. But where Ruskin wrote of the beauty of "lines” and other inanimate things about the stranded hulk, there is something infinitely more exciting in the definite story of how the lake steamer—once the neuclus of the present fleet—came into existence and the vagaries of her career. There are, of course. the abstract things about wbicli volumes might be written, but of those things there is no known record. Now and then some old resident will tell a reminiscent story of how., on a certain night in the ’sixties or the ’seventies, when the gaps in the mountains belched a veritable inferno of wind, and seas ran high and whitecrested over tlie entire expanse of the lake, they were hove-to for hours in some inlet from which the captain dared not venture forth. Then another will toll a stpry of celebrations aboard the old ship when some miner, returning from a fortunate sojourn in the mountains, treated aii and sundry with the open-handed hospitality it was their custom to employ upon such occasions. There are also stories of proud young skippers promoted to command by a company or railway department; of the great rushes of traffic during the gold-fever years, when the railway was as yet far from Kingston and bullock teams toiled up from the coast and landed mining machinery at Kingston, and of the multitudinous interesting doings of the early days of the now most popular tourist resort in the dominion. But looking at the old ship to-day one is content to believe with Ruskin that “there is an infinite strangeness in the perfection of the tiling as the work of human hands. THE TELLER OF THE STORY. While in Queenstown last week a Southland Times reporter was fortunate in being able to interview Mr Luckie, who was one of the shipwright’s employed in building the Antrim in IS6B. Mr Luckie was quite willing to recite facts to the limits of his memory, but was characteristically diffident about Ills name being prominently associated with the history of the steamer. His experience as a shipwright was, however, not limited to this one interesting feature but lie was also concerned in the building of the schooner, Waihopai—an event which will remain prominent in Invercargill’s early history on account of the peculiar circumstances connected with the launching. The schooner was shaped on a section in 'fay street in the early 'sixties, and when she was ready for launching it was found necessary to requisition a team of between fifty and sixty bullocks to haul it to the estuary. Diverging a little further, it is interesting to note that as a schooner the Waihopai was not a success, taking six weeks on a trip from Invercargill to Dunedin, and she was afterwards converted into a screw steamer. In the year IS6S Mr Luckie was engaged with a mate to go to the head of Lake Wakalipu and bni’d the Antrim, which was to be ttie first of the lake steamers. it is true that there had been ottier small craft of the steam launch type on the lake prior to that lime, but they bad been found more or less unsuitable. There were for instance, three slender and small beamed steam launches which had been brought over from the Yarra river, where they had been running for some time previously, but were found to be unsuitable to tbe lake traffic and conditions, One of these, the name of which Mr Luckie could not recall, was wrecked; another, the Venus, was towed out into the bay when her days of usefulness were done, and there she was scuttled. The third was eventually taken to Dunedin, where it afterwards plied in the harbour ferries. There is also some record of a clinker-built sailing craft known as the Wapatipu, which plied on the lake in the very early days of the mining rush. But this craft sank in tlie bay. and when re-floated, some time later, went to pieces.

TAKING THE WATKI',. A slipway was built adjoining a sawmill at the bead of the lake and the red birch, tolara, and black pine were fashioned into the curves of the hull and the internal tracery of ribs. After months of work the Antrim slid down the slipway into the cold waters of the lake. She had two masts and some sail, but no engines, and so she was sailed to Queenstown with a b ad of timber. While the workmen were awaiting the arrival of the engines, which were to come by bullock wagon from Dunedin. the timber brought down from the head of the lake was built into a jetty which served a useful turn in subsequent years. Finally the engines arrived and were shipped, and the Antrim made her trial trip on New Year's Day. fßt>9. The company then controlling the service had no skipper on hand, and so command of the new vessel devolved for a time upon .Mr Buckie. She plied back and forth to the head of the lake carrying timber', anil presently slip commenced to carry miners' gear ami the miners themselves. HOTTING IN PE VEX YEA US. Hut the bush timbers did not stand, and before tire Antrim had been running half a dozen years 11;e outside planking of red birch showed signs of decay. Orders were given for her to be taken on the slips, and .Mr Buckie was instructed to lay them down. The boat was replankcd on tire hull She did a roaring trade about that time. Hand was being taken up In every direction, and there was a great demand for posts and rails, and these and other goods were ferried from Kingston to Queenstown at the rate of twenty-five shillings a ton. Even the reneweii timbers did not last any longer than the original ones, and before many years had passed the Antrim had to be hauled on to the slipway again and rebuilt from the bottom to the deck. The hull was subsequently strengthened with railway iron, and she lias been overhauled many times so that all that remains of the original boat which slid back into the waters forty-five years ago is the bottom. But although tier career has been comparatively short ami she lias had to give way to more pretentions craft, necessitated by the influx of the big tourist traffic, the Antrim will remain a useful unit in the fleet. Today she is employed ns a pile-driver, and now and then she returns to the southward course, where for many years she. steamed proudly over the mirrored reflection of the Renvj.rka.bles. But her freights are no longer as they used to be, and more often than not the space once occupied by roistering gold-miners is occupied by sheep and cattle, destined to graze in the valleys, once alive with the gold-seekers.