MANUKA HAS NEVER BEEN IN TROUBLE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18946, 17 December 1929, Page 1

MANUKA HAS NEVER BEEN IN TROUBLE.

SHIP HAS HAD A REMARKABLE RECORD.

“She was the last word in marine architecture when she was built,” said Mr George Irvine, of Christchurch, when speaking of the Manuka this morning. Mr Irvine has made it a hobby to collect pictures and particulars regarding seagoing craft of all kinds and has been a passenger on the Manuka.

The sister ship of the Manuka, the Moeraki, was built first, he said this morning. These vessels were built to supersede the Mararoa, the old Te Anau and the now scrapped Talune. For many years the Manuka was the ship of the commodore of the Union Company’s fleet. Captain Neville had command at one time and, until he retired a few years ago, Captain Clift was in command.

The Meiboume-Hobart-Wellington--mn carried: on by the Manuka for some time, and at various periods she was employed on the ’Frisco

This, her last accident, was also her first. As far as Mr Irvine’s records show, she had never had an accident, and had never had to answer a distress call issued by any other vessel. She was engaged to aid in carrying the New

Zealand troops which occupied Samoa at the outbreak of war. Mr Irvine’s records show that in the vicinity of Long Point, many ships have been wrecked, although that par* ticular point has been free from wrecks itself. The steamer Otago was wrecked at Chasland’s Mistake in the seventies, the ship England’s Glory was lost neav there in 1881 in a fog, the steamer Scotia went ashore at Stirling Point in 1864, the ship Surat, with 307 souls on board, was wrecked at Chasland’s Mistake in 1873, and the barque William Gibbs went ashore near there in 1878. The coast of Otago and Southland has a lengthy record of wrecks, the most terrible being that of the Tararua. which went ashore at Waipapa Point on April 30, 1881, in hazy weather. Of the 120 people on board, only twenty were saved.