The Little Ships

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 803, 10 December 1954, Page 6

The Little Ships

LL day and every day the little ships chug in and out of harbour. These are no elegant yachts and speed-boats. These are the ships that mean business, the ships that sail under the New Zealand Red Ensign. Sometimes you see them tied up almost under the noses of disdainful oceangoing ships in Auckland Harbour, Lyttelton, Port Chalmers and, if you are fortunate enough, you'll see them where the big ships don’t dare to wander-up the Opawa River, twelve miles from the sea, or in Blenheim itself; and in years gone by, you could have seen them edging up the Piako and Waihou Rivers, by Thames. It was on that run that Captain William Raynes, master of the Waipu, now the Hokitika, used to take his ship over the countryside when floods came..She got grounded on a farm once-the crew promptly dug a canal for her, back to the river. Taking a short cut in another flood; she got caught up in a farmer’s barbed wire fence and ripped off her rudder. She got back to Auckland safely enough, using first one, then the other, of her twin screws. It was tales like this that got Jim Henderson interested in the sights and sounds, the stories and the little-recog-nised splendours of our merchant shipping fleet. In the wake of material about our little ships he tagged up and down New Zealand’s ports, talking to the men who run the shipping companies, the men who sail in the scows, the coasters, the surf-boats and the men who have retired from the sea but remember and love it. Several of Jim MHenderson’s talks deal with fleets of little ships working up round Auckland way, and down the East Coast. In his first talk he describes the wandering ways of the scows, those big- bellied, wash-board-sterned old girls, built years ago, diminishing in numbers now, but invaluable to Auck-

land’s building," pottery, drain-pipe manufacturing trades, and to her road building. Perhaps the most famous of all scows was the Moa, which was captured by the daring Count von Luckner, escaping from internment on Motuihe Island. He and his men dumped her cargo of heavy logs and made sail-for the Kermadec Islands some 600 miles out from _ Auckland. They were eventually rounded up by the cable steamer Iris. When von Luckner’ returned _ to New Zealand shortly before the last war he did not see his "liberty ship" again. She had been wrecked a few years before on the Big Wanganui River, South Westland. Wrecks... of _ coastal shipping used to be quite common in New Zealand waters. From 1883 to 1937 no fewer

than 50 scows were lost, some without the slightest trace and in _ perfect weather. Such mysteries might be expected in pre-radio, pre-aircraft days, but as recently as 1948 the Haere, with a crew of five, coming down from North Cape to Auckland, vanished completely. .It .was inevitable that the "little ships" should produce their "characters." On the North Island West Coast passenger service were Captain Poritt and Captain Keatley (a couple of hangmen, they were called). They’d sail their ships out of Onehunga Harbour togethershouting abuse at each other in their foghorn voices, pelting one another with potatoes and pebbles and eggs. Keatley was a dead-shot with a catapult. One day he stunned a seagull which had been sitting on a yardarm. It hit the deck with a wallop in front of four astonished passengers. "There’s only one thing that could have caused that," said Keatley. "Sun-stroke." The passengers were convinced, Jim Henderson went on down to Gisborne and Napier. Gisborne supports a ship of her own-the Turihau, of just under 500 tons. Napier is intensely proud of its 1100-tonner, the Pateke, lately out from Holland. Several other smaller ships beat up and down from Napier, Gisborne, the East Coast bays to Auckland. One thing that you can’t help but be conscious of, as Jim Henderson tells these stories of little ships and mighty sea, It’s the feeling of tradition running through the companies, because their stories are New Zealand’s story. They helped open up _ inaccessible country, went on secret missions in waftime, battled some of the worst storms in the world. And now, unhappily, in some cases, they see themselves being superseded by the great rail, road and air services which they helped bring into being. Under the N.Z. Red Ensign, a series of eleven talks by Jim Henderson, will start from 3YA on Tuesday, December 14, at 7.15 p.m., and will be heard later from other YA and YZ. stations,