SISTER TO THE MAORI.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 9, 9 January 1913, Page 5

SISTER TO THE MAORI.

WATER-TUBE BOILERS. . The new steamer which the Union Steam Ship Company has ordered for the Wellington-Lyttelton ferry service —the Wahine—is generally similar to the Maori. Miss Mills christened and launched the vessel, and she was presented by the senior partner of the company (Mr James Denny) with a diamond bracelet. Mr Denny said that the Wahine was simply an improved Maori. She was larger, they hoped would be faster, and in all details had been modernised in line with her owners’ experience. The only radical departure in the machinery was that instead of Scottish boilers she was fitted with water-tube boilers of the Babcock and Wilcox pattern. While that was a new stop for the Union Company to take, it was not without justification, because before determining upon it they had submitted to them the experience of another Australasian company, who found that boilers of this typo were specially suitable for Australian coal. Replying to complimentary remarks of Mr Peter Denny regarding the Union Company, Captain M‘Donaid said the Wahine brought up the Union Company’s fleet to 71 steamers, with an aggregate tonnage of 197,300, as compared with three steamers of a tonnage of 811, when the company was registered in 1875. The company directly and indirectly supported from 15,000 to 16,000 persons.