No Plans To Replace Navy Supply Ship To Antarctic

Press, Volume C, Issue 29498, 27 April 1961, Page 11

No Plans To Replace Navy Supply Ship To Antarctic

No plans have been made by the Government to replace the Royal New Zealand Navy’s Antarctic supply ship Endeavour, which recently returned from its fifth and last trip to MeMurdo Sound. The cost of a suitable replacement ship is estimated at about £BOO.OOO. the cost of the Government vessel Moana Roa.

The Endeavour has many unusual features. It is the Navy's only wooden ship, the only large diesel ship, and it carries a sail to steer into the wind during oceanographic surveys. Originally built in the United States during World War Two as a netlayer, the 194 ft-long ship has, in its 20-odd years of sailing been named AN 78. Pretext. John Biscoe, and Endeavour. Netlayer

It has been used as a netlayer in the United States, as a boom defence vessel in Britain towards the end of the war, as a survey ship for seven years and a half in the Falkland Islands Dependency, and it has sailed an estimated 40.000 miles with the Royal New Zealand Navy. According to its former commanding officer (Commander R. Humbyi it will not be scrapped but will probably be used for light oceanographic and survey work.

tn 1948 the 1275-ton Pretext was extensively modified to enable it to withstand the severe pressures of ice. An outer sheathing of two to three inches of a strong hardwood, green heart, was added and the stem was strengthened for ice cutting by the addition of steel plating. It was then re-named the John Biscoe. Minor modifications, a re-

fit, and re-naming i deavour took place at impton in 1956 after Naw Zealand Govern—purchased the ship for £20.000 as a supply vessel for the New Zealand Antarctic expedition. Its first trip to McMurdo Sound was made in September, 1056. On this occasion it took large quantities of supplies and men to the Antarctic to help in the establishment of Scott Base. Since this first trip the ship has sailed to the Antarctic each year with supplies for the New Zealand teams. For the last three years it has carried out extensive oceanographic and scientific surveys of Antarctic waters, particularly in the Ross Sea. Each winter it has been used for a variety of purposes. including dumping of ammunition, coastal surveys of New Zealand, lighthouse supply, servicing the remote islands of the Pacific and taking explosives for reef blasting.