RIVER STEAMER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 June 1942, Page 4

RIVER STEAMER

SERVICE ON WAIKATO SHIP OF SPECIAL DESIGN. INLAND WATERWAYS ROMANCE. Plying regularly up and down the Waikato River from Port Waikato to 3 Hamilton is a steamer of more than 3 passing interest. She is the sterns wheeler Rawhiti, a paddleboat which 1 is not a survival of an earlier method " of water transport, but a ship that for ’ her purpose could not easily be replaced. 1 Motorists and train passengers who ’ have caught a glimpse of the Rawhiti as they have rushed about their ocJ casions along the banks of the Wai--1 kato would be well repaid if they ■ could give the ship a closer visit. She ‘ is owned by the R'oose Shipping Comk pany, of Mercer. ’ The Rawhiti was built in Glasgow ’ and brought out to Nev/ Zealand ; knocked down, her plates and angles ■’ being assembled at the side of the ■ river. She cost £lB,OOO, and incorporates many features which are the result of the experiences of the managing director of the company, Mr C. Roose. Some of these were accepted very reluctantly by the builders, and the Glasgow firm was the only one of many approached who would agree to modifying their own designs to include his suggestions. She is not a small ship. She is 210 feet overall and 36 feet in beam. She can carry 400 tons of cargo on her two decks, with as many as six or seven ? barges of timber, sand and other odds and ends alongside. Her plating , everywhere is no more than 3-16 in. ( thick. The paddle wheel at the stern > is 17ft. Gin. in diameter, and immediately fore and aft of it are two sets I of rudders. EXTREME BUOYANCY. i The vessel is divided into several > watertight compartments, and the resulting buoyancy was never better proved than when, with 80 tons of coal on her bow, she was holed by a submerged rock. Although she went down right to her deckline, she made “port” without foundering, and was quickly repaired. Like most paddleboats which navigate river waters, the Rawhiti is fitted with hinged funnel and cargo derricks. If she did not have these, she would not be able to pass beneath the various bridges on her route. It is said of the Rawhiti’s plates today that they arc as good as when she was built. There are many more years of life and usefulness in the ship, and certainly there seems to be no immediate danger of her joining two former river boats which arc now sunk in the river. One, the Rangiriri, which was in service in the Maori wars, lies under’ the surface at Hamilton, and the other, the Bluenose, sank at Ngaruawahia. The cylinders and crankshaft of the Rangiriri were used 60 years after the ship was built, and even now the latter is being cut up for scrap to be used for war purposes. THOUSANDS OF CARGOES. Mr Roose’s Rawhiti is the largest and most modern of a river line which started in 1904 with a launch. With them he has carried thousands of car- j goes, not only up and down the Wai- , kato, but also along the Waipa, , Whangamarino and Maramarua. riv- ] ers. Much of the timber for many of 1 the houses in the Maramarua district < was taken by water long before good roads and modern carriage transport * were available. 1 For Mr Roose, the 38 years of his | enterprise have been crammed with f interest. The responsibility he holds e for many of the features of the Ra-jl whiti show the profoundness of his c knowledge of the special needs of paddleboats on the Waikato. The Rawhiti is not only a commercial enter- 1 prise, she is a romance. Ij