"Tiare Taporo" And Captain Andy

Weather The Hurricane

By A. J. Sheat

C Captain Andy Thomson, That Re

j doubtable skipper of the Cook Is lands schooner “Tiare Taporo” has had another adventure perhaps the most exciting of his career.

In February, and in sight of the Fiji group, the “Tiare Taporo” ran into the hurricane which was centred off Kadavu, and for five days, filled with the fury of wind and waves, she fought desperately for her life. Captain Thomson believes that if his ship had had to take that buffeting just a few hours more, she would

have foundered.

It is reported that the barometer at one time fell to 28.32, where it stayed for hour upon hour, watched by a Mrs. Hall, a European pas senger on the ship who had been assigned the nerve racking task of keeping the readings.

Captain Thomson was at the wheel himself for over four days and nights, with only the briefest periods of rest.

WHEN I read that “Tiare Taporo” had survived — but only just—l thought of a 23-day voyage I had experi enced in the same stoutly built vessel under the care of her stoutly-built skipper, Captain Andy. It was a voy age, under sail, along from the Northern Cooks to Raro tonga in 1945.

By sheer mischance the Tiare’s engine had failed and there was nothing left but to sail the 700 miles (as the albatross flies) without the aid of the propeller.

We had dead calms, when the “Tiare” rolled in the swell with sails down, con trary winds and no rains to replenish the water supply. It was a voyage that tested the resourcefulness of Skipper Thomson. The water problem was acute when the volcanic peaks of Rarotonga showed up over the horizon on the 23rd day. The “Tiare” had travelled then about the distance ’from Auckland to Sydney 1,200 miles.

I learned that “Tiare Taporo” is Poly nesian for “The Lime Flower,” and that this Auckland-built schooner was so named because the founder of the firm of A. B. Donald & Co. (Tiare’s owners), established the family fortunes by a suc cessful venture into the manufacture of lime juice in Tahiti and the supplying of it to shins.

Whatever the origin of the name the schooner has at all events a spray of citrus leaves and fruit under her bowsprit.

Captain Andy Thomson says that one of his most pleasant memories was meet ing, during a visit to Auckland, the man who designed and built the “Tiare.” I think that just as the men of the HMS “Calliope” attributed their escape from the Apia hurricane of 1889 to good steam coal from Westport. NZ, so Andv Thom son will modestly give much of the credit for the way his schooner survived the recent hurricane to the designer and shipwirghts who built her. * During the war years the “Tiare Taporo” virtually was the only means of communication between isolated islands of the Cook Group. Since copra began soaring in price she has been kept mov ing constantly bringing load after load to Rarotonga, especially from the isolated Northern Group (Manihiki, Rakahanga, Pukapuka and Penrhyn).

Because of the complete absence of

land-locked harbours in the Cooks it has been customary during the hurricane season for island schooners to make a voyage to another part of the Pacific at that time of the year.

Previously the “Tiare Taporo” has sailed eastward to Tahiti, to undergo overhaul, but a change of p>lans was made this year, the “Tiare” sailing westward to Suva. It is said that the difficulty of getting ship repairs carried out at Tahiti nowadays prompted this variation from the usual.

So the “Tiare” ran away from prob-

able hurricanes in the Cook Group to run slap, bang into an Old Man hurri cane in the Fiji Group!

It’s all in the luck of the sea!

“Tiare Taporo” dries her sails at Rarotonga.