News of the Small-Ships

It Happened In This Month:

-In January, 1870, as the result of marine inquiry at the then ritish Consulate in Levuka, a cer aptain, Finley M’Liver, was re eved from command of the Auck nd schooner William and Julia for ending to promote and encourage most illegal traffic”—to wit, slave iding.

From a nautical point of view e case, at this distance, is inter ring in that the schooner is men ned as being owned by a Maori lef— though he was not aboard, captain M’Liver was found to ve “been in command for 9 inths in excess of his Agreement; saffed under no flag; did not m whether he was a British Sub t or not; and kept no log.”

Ie had taken aboard four native men in the Gilberts on a verbal eement to work as domestics in , He had received £2O for two toe , m 7 as passage money, he imed from “Mr. Leefe’s over r at Nananu”; and the other two e to be disposed of in Fiji “for benefit of the vessel.” The , ce ,^ emed to suggest that )tam M Liver and his command y have been engaged in this le for some time, aptain George Frost sailed the ■el to Auckland after the Inquiry.

Nother Cable Shlp;—Last

month we reported that Stanley Angimn had called at Suva to load telegraph cable en route to a repSr job near Fanning Island. At about the same time Cable & Wireless Co ’I . latest addition, the fast 3,300-ton Recorder, soon to relieve Stanley Angwm on the Singapore station (which handles Pa!m c deep-sea jobs), was in collision with the Danish vessel Uruguay, while en Lond e on rOm A Ward "to London. A 6-ft hole was torn in Recorder’s starboard side in the way of the engmeroom. y

Polurrian Damaged:—Too

late for inclusion last month came word that the Bougainville Com pany’s smart 339-ton M/V Polur

nan, after suffering plate-damage

when she struck a Queen Carofl a n^ Ur reef °? November 1, was to undergo repairs in Hongkong An h?? re s°s stated that she wis to be towed there from Rabaul. Mean- Products Ltd.’s 390ton Meklong has been chartered and w 1 maintain the Buka-Bougain vpiLf e T ce with the small vessels Nuguna and Nusa.

Meklong herself was the subject of an interesting salvage operation some tune ago. She is the same type of oil-burning steel steamer as the Fiji trader Ai Sokula (ex Hong Ann) owned by another W. R. Car

penter subsidiary. —To replacement lo replace the old Lciurahnfin mentioned last month, as a sonnel vessel for thp p mp a

tetration, the TO-ft* M/VMa'Z;

been acquired and will be rpnampH Laurabada 11. Purchased from'toe

lave been less favourable for long listance results.

Completely independent of bat hes, the modern lifeboat set has , hand-cranked generator—which reates difficulties in lone-hander se. Recently we mentioned that tpenments are going ahead on a m-powered transmitter which ould require no cranking. But it ould require sunshine. Now the 'search department of All India adio has developed a kerosene iwered radio for use in rural areas s application to the ship’s lifeboat ay prove important. The Indian ceiver will give 3 hours listening 1 .i-£ ay^or a mon th on about 6/4 >rth of kerosene. The same power lit would operate a small trans iter.

MI , EN i A -— Inquiries made since an ndent was reported aboard the ;le Solomons trader Miena while ichus fishing off the Queensland show that Captain J. w mmond has not sold the vessel 3 is himself aboard.

Absent Friends: Captain

c Lmdstrom and Mr. Willie mtz, well known in the Gilberts, ared Sydney for Dunedin, NZ, in i-December with the new fishing sel Olwyn, which they were de ling from the Ulladulla ship d of Auto-Diesel Co. iewing the craft before departure ; Captain Tom Milner, now )nd officer in the new Sydnev •win freighter Wongara, and

Captain Carl Johnson, harbour master/pilot of Tonga. Cantafn Johnson, on leave in Sydney ?aSe s « uth as a guest of the Orient ISI aboard Orion, after piloting that cruise-ship through Tongan waters several months ago. Also nresent Mr. Bill Crawford, formerly of W R Carpenter and Co.’s shipping de partment in Suva. s ue

Reef Excursion: —The Lord

Howe motor-cruiser Flyinq Cloud (see December PIM) was to make a run in January with a large party g f Lord Howe fishermen, to Eliza beth and Middleton reefs, 130 and !65 mffes to the north. Fishing is k 0 ex tremely good when the weather permits anchorage within the encircling reefs. Remains of some old wrecks are still visible on k lO reefs which are gradually

»atX lnto 3SSS

Abrasions And Fractures'

mS 1 -^ e ™ aI T7 De .Partment’s smart httle 77 GT Vumwai, bound from Savusavu to Suva, with Drs F Tross and W. J. Whelan, of World Health Organisation, two hospital patients, and a medical department clerk as passengers, went up on v ui ee miles NNE of Wakaya lighthouse in the early hours of De cember 3. The mishap occurred at high tide, and Vuniwai adopted a 45-degree list, pounded the reef, and soon sprang a leak. Radio calls brought the-Levuka-Natovi passenger

launch Ovalau to take off the passengers, and Captain Harness Suva Harbourmaster, in an RNZAF

SST t 0 fly

gSMM'ssss ias&fSg

Gau, succeeded next day in towing Vumwai clear and beaching h™fol temporary repairs at Levuka from

where she later proceeded to Suva for some more serious surgery on a slipway. , The 3-years-old, 55-ft vessel was in trouble in August, 1953, when she lost her propeller at sea.

NG LOSS: —The small NG coaster Weston became a total loss in No vember when she went ashore south of Vanimo on the mainland north coast and became a total loss. The vessel had been recently refitted at Madang. All hands got safely ashore. An inquiry was to be held at Wewak in December.

Ill-Luck Dogs Pago Pago

FLEET; Last month’s reported misfortunes to the Jap fishing fleet under fishing contract to the Ameri can tuna cannery at Pago Pago, were added to in December. On December 1, shortly after the first two vessels arrived from Japan, a Japanese seamen was killed when struck by a cargo hook.

The Missionaries Were

HOSTILE: —A Fiji-born seaman, named John Atook, while waiting for a launch to take him aboard the “missionary vessel Suva m Sydney, was bashed and thrown into the harbour by two other men from the same W. R. Carpenter & Co. ship —according to a December Sydney, newspaper report. Suva, a trans-Pacific freighter, seems to carry a particularly hostile type of “missionary.”

Temporarily Missing:—The

New Hebrides Administration ketch Concord, five days overdue, with five persons aboard, was the cause of an air search by an RNZAF Sunder land from Fiji in mid-November.

Concorde, presumably with motor disabled and no wind-power, was located off Erromanga Island,

whence the French naval sloop Tia from Noumea was despatched render aid.

Tasman Steamships;

Madonna, recently acquired flagsh of the New Zealand ex-servicemei Tasman Steamship Co., clea * Auckland for Hongkong with

linese crew on December 1. As result of the company’s financial Bculties the vessel was taken over the Southern Marine Mercantile mpany of Hongkong which aarently had the main financial erest in the converted freezer vette. A Chinese crew took over Auckland. ?iti meanwhile was in difficulties ;h the water-front unions in ttelton when she arrived there h a cargo of 5,218 cases of Man a pineapples. t was alleged that nine Cook inders aboard were being em yed on Fiji terms, at lower rates pay and standards of accommo ion than those applying to sels registered in NZ. ’he crew was paid off and re led on NZ terms, and the cargo ; then discharged. Viti then de two runs south to Campbell ind, exchanging staff and carry stores for the southern weather tion. n mid-December it was reported

that Viti might be sold to Fiji buyers. The small Vasu was then on a charter voyage from Fiji to the Gilberts and there were reports from Samoa that she might start a fairly regular service from Suva eastward to as far as Tahiti, as cargo offered.

Unusual Cargo :—Mr. Hugh

Williams converted Bnxham trawler Inspire, which trades in the Cook Islands, had an unusual cargo from Aitutaki to Rarotonga m December —BO school-teachers bound to the capital for a refresher course.

LEPER VESSELS:—After lengthy delays over standard design, plans have now been approved for the four vessels which the New Zealand Lepers’Trust Board announced more than a year ago that it would

provide for servipp in Pacific the Western is assumed that tenders will now be called for the construction of the 55 ft x 16 ft wooden single screw auxiliary ketches. They are to be well equipped, including re irigerators, 3.rid. of coursp telephones' and will have 7-8 tons of cargo space. The 80 ho diesels should drive them, without sails at 7 knots. The vessels will actually be operated by four different mission denominations in the Solomons- New Hebrides area. They should now of 1955 S6rVlCe by the latter half q PE TAL TRlP:—Societe Miniere et M *me Hagen’s 1,300-ton ste i o Hebridais II was in Sydm in mid-December prepar

[?] eur d’Ocean” which ended her days [?]Toau atoll reef late in October, and, [?] w, the San Francisco yacht “Makai”

Papeete.

g for a special run from Noumea Suva and Wallis Island.

News of Cruising Yachts

I WINDJAMMER, Peggy Poor’s 57 ft. itre-board schooner from New Orleans, y have been lost on Easter Island era! months ago, if nnconfirmed reports ,ching Balboa are correct. Miss Poor, h American navigator Jim Cox, and itish West Indian Gordon Nicol-Sey, ired Balboa last January for Galapagos, iter, Pitcairn, and French Oceania, but July it was reported that WIND HMER would about-turn at Easter and some South American coastal cruising ore continuing across the Pacific. ► CHANCE, 36 ft centre-board ketch n Koln, Germany, bound for the Pacific, been delayed. Our Balboa cores ident reports that though the yacht ired there for Galapagos and east d in July, it put back some time later medical attention to Frau Vangeninden, mother of a child which had then n born on board. filing again some days later they were t reported in a Costa Rica port, hav put back there after losing the centre rd. They may now be in the Gala os. Aboard the yacht is owner Theo. ten and his wife, each aged about and Herr and Frau Vangeninden, a of 14, and the infant.

FLAMINGO, NZ, a. Auckland from mea via Norfolk Island Nov. 21, com ing her Western Pacific cruise. (Dec., LANDFALL 11, US, a. Auckland y December, 16 days out of Suva, and Mrs. Holcomb plan to stay several ths in NZ waters, then head for icy. Working his passage home after ting in Fiji was Mr. Don Roberts.

• MARINER, US, a. Auckland Dec 7 from Suva which she cleared a few davs before LANDFALL 11, and like LANDFALL H met bad weather. Owners Robinson and Karl will spend some time in Auck land and have no firm plans. With them since Tahiti has been Australian John O’Donnell. (Feb., *54). • Another unnamed twin-hulled 23 ft catamaran left Brighton, UK, recently for a shake-down cruise in the European in land waterways before heading for the Pacific. Owners are Jim and Ruth Wharram. • NAITAMBA, last mentioned in July PIM as clearing San Francisco for Wellington, called at Rarotonga and cleared for Wellington December 3. With American R. K. Smith (now of Welling ton) were Messrs. Hilton and Dobson who travelled north at their own expense to assist in sailing NAITAMBA, which is equipped with a radio transmitter. • SOLACE, Commander Victor Clark’s 30 ft ketch which was cast on the Palmerston Island reef November 14 has been gradually worked across a broad stretch of shallows into the lagoon with the aid of log rollers and the local people.

She was then floated with empty drums and in early December again beached on a sandy beach a quarter mile from where she was wrecked. It should now be possible for repairs to be carried out, but evidently Commander Clark and his companion from the West Indies may have to spend the hurricane season on that atoll. • Dr. Earl Reynolds, a US atomic scientist, with his wife and two children, amd three Japanese crew-men, arrived at Honolulu early December after a 48-day passage from Japan in a ketch, details of which are not yet available. Dr.

Reynolds indicated that he might later head sooth from there through Polynesia to Australia. • Rarotonga Sailing Club officially opened its season on December 4. In addition to the fleet of outriggers, the Club this season has three Moth-class boats in the water. fl Mr. Fred Ball, who is well known in the BSIP and New Guinea, was flown out from Rabaul in September suffering from a cerebral haem orrhage. A doctor accompanied him to his home in New Zealand. He first visited the Protectorate in 1947, and spent some time on the Gold Ridge and Sorvohio Goldfields with Messrs. R. Laycock and A.

Olsen. He was impressed with what he saw, and intended to return, but was delayed for four years by a serious illness. In 1952 he returned with Mr. J. Broadhurst on behalf of Anglo-Oriental (Malaya) Ltd., but both were disappointed to find that their main objective, the Kova gambi Alluvial Valley, was already being tested by the Bulolo Com pany. When his duties were finished, Mr. Ball left the Anglo-Oriental Company and returned to Guadal canal later in 1952, and staked a claim on the Sorvohio River, im mediately above Kovagombi. He had barely started his gold-mining operations, when as a result of his hard work he had to return to New Zealand to undergo another opera tion. He recovered well from this

but was forbidden to return to the tropics. However, in spite of this, early in 1954 he returned to Bougainville with Mr. J. Broadhurst on behalf of Anglo-Oriental (Malaya) Ltd., and with light drill ing equipment tested the Jaba River alluvial gold deposits. It was after this work that he became ill and

had to be taken back to New Z land.

If The Reverend D. S. W. Hoey the Melanesian Mission, with wife and son, arrived in Sydnej Novenber for a short furlough wl they intended to spend in West Australia.