JAPANESE SURPRISE VISIT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 9, 5 July 1911, Page 8

JAPANESE SURPRISE VISIT.

TRAINING-SHIP AT MELBOURNE. The Japanese mercantile cruiser Taisei Maru, a four-masted (auxiliary steam) barque, arrived at Melbourne on June 30, as a surprise visitor. She had for some time been unsuccessfully endeavoring to communicate by wireless. The Taisei Maru left Yokohama on October 20, 1910, for a voyage to the Falkland Islands, Capetown, and Wellington, with a complement of 154 men all told. These include the captain, 13 officers, 94 cadets, and 40 crew. Since the vessel started out, the itinerary has been modified. Tahiti was touched at, and Melbourne substituted as a port of call in place of Wellington. The first few weeks of the voyage were marked by exceptionally rough weather. A week was spent at Papeete, a week at Port Stanley, near the Island of Tristran d'Acunua. On the way to Capetown the ship during a gale lost the three lower topsails. Two agreeable weeks were spent in Capetown.

| The Taisei Maru is to Temain ten days in Melbourne. She will theo leave direct for Japan. This is her sixth ■C£ui«!~ On previous voyages she has visited Australia, Manila, California, Hawaii, the Fiji Islands, and the West Coast of South America. The vessel, which was built for a commercial company, was appropriated by the Japanese Government during the Russian war as a water tender and transport, and was utilised in the blockade of Port Arthur. After the war she became the property of the Government Nautical College, and was placed under the control of the Department of Communications as a training-ship for cadets for the mercantile service. Captain C. Furuya, who served in the wars against iboth China and Russia, is in command. He is now on the reserve list. The officers are chiefly graduates of the Nautical College of Tokio.