LAST ANCHORAGE

Taranaki Daily News, 23 November 1932, Page 10

LAST ANCHORAGE

HAVEN ON THE KAIPARA OLD SHIPS OF YESTERDAY. BARQUENTINE AMONG MANGROVES. It is is true that the ghosts of old sailormen return to the ships in which once they sailed, strange sights may some day be seen on the banks of the Kaipara at Helensville, states the Auckland Star. Almost at the entrance to the township itself is the rusty hull of a once smart steamer, and a mile or so nearer the sea, nesting in a mangrovefringed arm of the river, is the skeleton of a ship that did valuable survey work around New Zealand’s coasts.

E When spring tides lend importance to > the Kaipara the Kina —for that is the i name of the old steamer that to-day 1 rides motionless on the fringe of a broad ; meadow—hears again the lapping of i water along her iron sides. Viewed from the main road she appears to be miles ; away from any water, but actually she is within a few yards of the river which once bubbled to the chum of her screw. All that remains of the steamer is her iron shell and inside this grows long grass, just out of reach of the cows which at times threaten to crumple in her rusty plates. A solitary cabbage tree is also flourishing within the wreck. The glassless portholes suggest that the ship’s main saloon was situated amidships, but with the passing of the years it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish the ports from the holes that are appearing in her sides. The wooden planking of the saloon floor is rotten ■ with age, and half hidden in the long grass on the shore side is what was once a ventilator. Dangling over the lean bows is a wire hawser that looks too good to belong to the wreck. Of masts or funnel there is no sign. LAUNCHED BY BULLOCKS. The Kina was built at Yeoman’s yard, at the foot of Albert Street, in the early

'seventies, and she was got into th Waitemata by the help of a bullocl team. A vessel of 52 tons register, sh< had been designed for the Coromande trade out of Auckland and for severa years she was engaged in that service When the Northern Union Steamboa Company, which later merged into th: Kaipara Shipping Company, resolved t< put Captain Casey out of business, th( Kina, together with the Durham and the Tongariro, was sent to Helensville. T had been intended that Captain Casey’: vessels should be run off the river, bui the fight never ’ started, the rival concern selling out to the other company. Wher the settlers at Waipu were persuaded tc take 500 shares in the Kaipara Steam Ship Company the Kina was sent back to Auckland to enter the Waipu trade. After 18 months in that service she went ashore at Waipu and again a bullock team was necessary to induce her to return to the sea. Sent back to the Kaipara again, she ran for some years to Pahi and Port Albert.

The Kina’s next trip to Auckland was for the purpose of having 21ft added to her length. This job was successfully carried out and the vessel later ran for a long time on the Kaipara. For the last two years of her active life the Kina was running in oppo.vtion to the Osprey, which, until a few years ago,was a ferry steamer at Auckland. Apparently the fight took too much out of the older trader for she was ruled unfit for further service. With her death sentence upon her, the steamer came into the hands of Captain Thomas Ross, who had commanded her for many years. Telling the story of tire old ship yesterday Captain Ross, who retired four years ago and is now living the evening of his life at Helensville, said that when he acquired her it had been his intention to resheath her, but that he had never done so. Instead he had got the ship on to the river bank near his old homestead, and it is there that her shell still remains. A REAL MUDLARK. Strangely enough, it is Captain Ross who can also claim ownership of the Kaipara’s other maritime corpse, although he admits to-day that he cannot

remember whether the condemned ship

Was given to him or whether he bought it. This old-timer was the barquentine Lark, and old men with good memories declare that there was a time when she

was entitled to the letters. “H.M.S.” before her name. To-day she is slowly breaking up on a branch of the river that to the reporter seemed little more than a trickle. When first she was coaxed up the creek her tall masts still stood, and the wind made music through her rigging, but now they are only a memory. Her stout bowsprit still points proudly up-stream, but her mam deck has collapsed, and a length of her port

side has toppled inwards. With the mangroves around her, she sits out her last days on the brown mud. The action of the creek has banked up the mud against her sides, and only when the river is high does the water lap her flanks. The remains of a rusty pump can be seen on her fo’c’sle head, and there are a few other of her fittings that have defied the weather. Her rudder, half hidden in the mud, is turned hard over, as if making a vain attempt to head the ship out to sea again. The Lark, as Captain Ross remembers her, was originally' a survey ship engaged on the New Zealand coast. He believes, too, that at one time she carried guns. Later she was taken over by an Australian firm. When her days were shortening she was sold to Mr. James Stewart, of Helensville, who ran her on the coast for some time. Eventually she ran on the Tory Shoal, and when she was got off she was condemned. When Captain Ross took possession of her he planned to block the creek with her and to cut sluice gates in her sides, but he never carried out his scheme. Even in her dilapidated condition, the ship is still a good advertisement for English oak frames.

Like the old ships that he can still call his, Captain Ross is a veteran of the sea. Seventy-six years of age, he was bom in the Shetland Islands, and as a lad he ran away to sea. On his first voyage in 1874 he was icebound in the Baltic. After serving his time in Sail he drifted to Australia, and thence to the Kdipara, where his name later became a household word. To-day the veteran is happiest when his memories are taking him down the river on the Kina again.