VON LUCKNER’S SCOW

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 322, 5 April 1928, Page 1

VON LUCKNER’S SCOW

MOA CHANGES HANDS WINSTONE, LTD., BUYERS The historic scow Moa, the largest vessel of her kind in Auckland, has changed hands. IyTESSRS. WINSTONE, LTD., shingle merchants, recently purchased the Moa from the Leyland, O’Brien Timber Company, Ltd., and intend installing crude-oil engines in the vessel. She will then be employed in the shingle trade between Whangaroa and other Bay of Islands ports and Auckland. Known on the waterfront as “Von Luckner’s scow,” the Moa has had an exceedingly adventurous career, the most interesting part of which was when she was captured in the Bay of Plenty by Count von Luckner and a party of German prisoners-of-war, who had escaped from the internment camp on Motuihi Island. Von Luckner and his party escaped from Motuihi on December 13, 1917, and the next day they seized the Moa. The Germans were fully armed, and in consequence the Moa’s crew could not offer any resistance. After the capture the Moa’s course was set for the South Sea Islands. Count von Luckner first made for the Kermadec Islands, where he hoped to get a store of provisions by raiding the food depots which were placed on the islands for castaways. While the Moa was at the Kermadecs, however, she was recaptured by the cable steamer Iris, which had been sent out in pursuit of the fugitives. Last winter, when en route from Auckland to Awanui, the Moa encountered a severe storm on the East Coast, being dismasted and completely disabled by the fury of waves. She was towed back to Auckland by the tug Simplon in a sorry state, and repaired. The Moa was built at Auckland m 1907, and is registered as 99 tons gross, with a length of 95 feet.