ANOTHER VETERAN SHIP AT END OF HER DAYS

Chronicle (Levin), 4 January 1947, Page 3

ANOTHER VETERAN SHIP AT END OF HER DAYS

-Press Association

By Telegraph-

AUCKLAND, Jan. 3. After being reprieved from the serap heap for war service as an oil storage hulk, the veteran Admiralty j tanker Nucula has reached the linai ■ stage of her long service with the JRoyal Navy. Lying at her familiar moorings in the upper harbour, the old ship is to be handed to the War Assets Kealisa- , tion Bo,ard for disposai and she will probably end her days in the shipbreakers' yards. The Nucula has seea longer commission on the New Zealand station that any warship except the Philomel. For many years she brought oil fuel from San Pedro for cruisers and sloops at Auckland and aeted as a supply vessel for the Diomede, Dunedin, Leith and Veronica when they undertook their prewar cruises in the Pacilie. Because of their longer range, the arrival in New Zealand of the more modern cruisers Achilles and Leander made this role uunecessary. After making her linal voyage from San Pedro, the Nucula was iaid up in June, 1087, and the New Zealand Government which had operated her under charter from the Adrpiralty, was asked to arrange for her disposai. However, as an oil hulk she gained wliat appeared to be a sliort extension of her life and when the war required the building up of fuel reserves, she was retained on a semi-permanent basisi ' With the completion of large ; oil storage tanks at .Devonport, the Nucula. is no longer required and the -.tqiSppsal prqcedure which' ,was, begun. |a_jL93*7 is;-n.ow being reintrodueed?: To 'retdim' tlid :ship dvfeh as a hulk would probably, involve uuecouomic ekpeadi,tur& and-.ii .w •exp.p.cted sh e will ■ pass' finf§ \ '"thd1 i shlfil5rea§.ers ' hinds. ' Built at Newcastle in 1906, the Nucuja jthe. Noyo,, ijaru , .and Hcrmfehe 'beFohe :4®e, miralty. auiiliaj^y., : tShe ' .dispTafieg .4^1 F tons»