Deaths of Islands People

A salute to Captain Andy

Captain Andrew Thomson, better known as Captain Andy Thomson, who died at his home in Rarotonga on October 17 was something of a legend in his own lifetime. Among his friends were such South Seas person alities as the American authors Nor doff and Hall and Robert Dean Frisbie.

American by birth, Captain Andy was one of an almost-extinct breed of men who served their apprentice ship days in square-rigged ships and spent most of their sea careers in sailing vessels.

Jovial, hospitable and forthright by nature, Andy Thomson was born in Brooklyn, New York, on January 21, 1887, He did not retire from the sea until he was 74 and was one of the oldest men in the Cook Islands when he died, aged 88 years and nine months.

He grew up on Long Island, close to the port of New York, which in his younger days, was crowded with square-rigged ships as well as large steamers. He served his apprenticeship on square-riggers in the Atlantic, be came a quartermaster on ships on the Great Lakes, and made voyages out of Seattle and San Francisco, including trips to Alaska, before coming to the South Pacific.

He first saw Rarotonga from the deck of a Boston barque when he was 15. He saw a basalt cliff running up behind A. B. Donald’s trading store at Avatiu and decided that was the place for him.

By the time he was 19 he was the lessee of six acres on Rarotonga and knew “he was there for keeps”. He said he never regretted it. He married a Rarotongan, and never regretted that either.

For the best part of his lifetime he worked for A. B. Donald (Cl) Ltd, becoming master of their trading schooner, Tagua, until that vessel was sold in Tahiti.

In 1939, he took command of the auxiliary diesel schooner, Tiare Taporo, and remained with her until 1949, when the vessel was re transferred to the company’s trade in the Society Islands.

Tiare Taporo means Flower of the Lime in the Tahitian language, and the schooner was one of the last fore and-aft rigged sailing ships built in New Zealand for the Islands’ trade.

This 97 ft 5 in., 172.59 gross ton nage schooner, was built to the order of A. B. Donald Ltd. of Auckland, by Charles Bailey Jnr, in Auckland in 1913. The vessel was built of New Zealand kauri timber with frames of pohutukawa and a keel of heart kauri.

The schooner was placed in the ser vice of the company for the Society Group and was Papeete-based.

Her first skipper was Captain Joe Winchester who, on retirement, settled in the Tuamotus.

In 1918, Tiare Taporo sailed to San Francisco and loaded a cargo of case oil for Auckland where she arrived on January 8, 1919, after a 58-days voyage.

After overhaul, the vessel sailed for Rarotonga where she entered the service of A. B. Donald’s Cook Islands trade.

Captain Viggo Rasmussen, a Dane who had lived in Tahiti since 1896, commanded the vessel for the next 17 years and became Andy Thomson’s friend.

From 1936 to 1939, Tiare Taporo was commanded by two temporary masters; then Captain Andy Thom son skippered her from 1939 to 1949 after which she re-entered A, B.

Donald’s trade in the Society Islands.

Subsequently, Captain Andy became master of the company’s Cook Islands motor vessel Charlotte Donald In April, 1960, Tiare Taporo re turned to the Cook Islands service and Captain Thomson once again became her master until he retired from the sea. The schooner gave A.

B. Donald Ltd 50 years of continuous service, weathered several hurricanes, and never had a serious accident.

Mr Sam Bennett, the secretary and islands trading manager of A. B.

Donald Ltd, once said of Captain Andy: “He has been sailing among the islands for half a century and must be unique in that he has never lost a ship or a man and has never bumped a reef.”

Some light was thrown on this re markable record by Mr Roy Lidgard, a boat-builder who recalled an occa sion when he was mate on the Tiare Taporo.

A live chicken was lost overboard.

Captain Andy put the ship about and posted lookouts up the masts. After half an hour’s searching, they picked up the chicken.

When Mr Lidgard asked the cap-

tain why he did that for a chicken, Captain Andy replied that he did it, first for practice, and, secondly, to impress on the crew that if they were washed overboard, even at night, they should keep treading water, because Captain Andy would go about and would find them.

Answering a newspaper reporter’s questions on this subject, Captain Andy said: “I’ve had dozens of crew and a few passengers fall overboard and I’ve picked up every one of them alive.”

The day Captain Andy Thomson died, the business concerns of the Cooks Islands Trading Corporation, A. B. Donald Ltd’s bulk store and the Mobil Oil Depot closed two hours earlier than usual as a mark of respect.

He was buried that evening in the grounds of his home at Rutaki, and an estimated 200 to 300 mourners attended the funeral. He is survived by his wife, a daughter and four sons, one of whom, Tony Thomson, is a master mariner.— W. H. Percival.

Mr W. J. Meehan The death has occured in Rabaul of Mr. William John Meehan, 54, an Australian exserviceman who became a central figure in the postwar com mercial development of the Papua New Guinea island town of Kavieng.

There he established planting, build ing, trading and transport interests after taking his army discharge on the spot 30 years ago.

Captain Andy . . . one of his favourite pictures.