KAWHIA HARBOUR

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 79, Issue 7146, 16 December 1949, Page 6

KAWHIA HARBOUR

ITS GREAT POSSIBILITIES MARINE CAPTAIN’S VIEW Vessels of 1500 to 1300 tons could Work the Port of Kawhia at any state of the fide, and at high tide water vessels of 6000 to 8000 tons gross should experience no difficulty in working the port in moderate weather. This information has been received from Captain D. R. Munro, of the Motor Vessel Holmglen, by the secretary of the Te Anga branch of Federated Farmers. This information is particularly interesting in view of the Statement that the Public Works Department intend to spend the sum of £250,000 on the provision of a proper access road to Kawhia. At Kawhia you have the finest natural harbour on the West Coast of New Zealand and maintenance, apart from wharf and shed facilities, would be nil,” he writes. “My advice is to concentrate on making Kawhia a good coastal and intercolonial port —the smaller type of overseas tramp steamers, such as phosphate traders and the like, can use Kawhia in its present state.” Geographic Advantages Captain Munro adds that he is very pleased indeed to know that at last there is a movie afoot to develop Kawhia into a port to serve the Waikato and King Country districts—one look; >a|t ijhe map would! convince anyone that, in the very near future, there must be a port north of New Plymouth to relieve the congestion at the bottleneck Auckland has become. Advantage Over Other Ports The bar was not dangerous, there being ample room between north and south banks and it was workable when other bars were not, owing to the protection given by Albatross Point. Should the bar be temporarily unworkable, good shelter and achorage ig to be had in the lee of Albatross Point. Kawhia’s advantages over Raglan were depth of water on bar and the protection above mentioned. New Plymouth had to maintain long expensive wharves, a long breakwater exposed to the full blast of westerly gales and a large sea going dredge. To meet these heavy expenses a Harbour Improvement rate was charged on all cargo in addition to the usual harbour dues. Tauranga had /the advantage of being on the East Coast and was not subject to the prevailing westerlies. There was practically no bar to speak of and providing the wharf was built at Mt Maunganui in the natural deep water, no dredging would be required. On the other hand, should the wharf be bujlt at Tauranga it would be necessary to dredge the Stella Pas-

sage and maintain the depth. Unlikely to Deteriorate Captain Munro made' four or five trips to Kawhia just prior to the war and at that time his soundings corresponded with those taken by the late Captain Dorling. Captain Munro presumed these soundings were taken prior to the First World War, in which case it proved that the bar had not deteriorated in the past 25 years and if left in its natural state was not likely to in the next century. Durban had been quoted as a port where moles served to scour, away the bar. It was years since he visited that port, but if memory served him correctly, large powerful dredges were continuously employed there. Small Wharf Expenditure The present-day meat and produce ships were mostly 10,000 to 14,000 ton liners, for which Kawhia harbour would not have the required capacity, but it could take the majority of the remaining shipping, and wfiat was very important, had the advantage of not requiring, long and expensive approaches to the wharves. If the foreshore was reclaimed, say to about low water mark, the actual wharf would only need to extend to the deep water and the reclamation would serve as a' solid foundation for the necessary approaches, sheds, offices, etc. “None Very Interested” Captain Munro adds that on one of his trips to Kawhia he had the authority of Captain S. Holm, of the Holm Shipping Company, to tell the Kawhia business people that he was willing to send out one of the Holm boats to Kawhia with as little as 60 ton of southern cargo once a month and more often if trade developed, but at that time nope seemed very interested and apart from loading sopie wool for Wanganui nothing was taken in. At -the time of writing, however, he was bound to Dunedin and Timaru to load full cargo of southern produce for Hamilton via Raglan.