Minerva about 1911 | |
History | |
---|---|
Owner | Clevedon Steam Navigation Company Limited |
Builder | Charles Bailey junior |
Launched | 10 December 1910 |
General characteristics | |
Tonnage | 21 tons |
Length | 65 ft (20 m) |
Beam | 15 ft (4.6 m) |
Draught | 3 ft 10 in (1.17 m) |
Installed power | Twin 14 hp (10 kW) steam engines by Fraser & Sons |
Speed | 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) |
Capacity | 176 in river, 117 in extended limits |
Minerva was a 21-ton, [1] kauri-built, [2] steam passenger ferry, launched for Clevedon Steam Navigation Company Limited at the Freemans Bay yard of Charles Bailey on 10 December 1910, to link Auckland with Whitford and Howick. [3] A social for the new ship was held at Whitford on 16 January 1911. [4]
When road competition made the service uneconomic, [5] she was put up for sale in 1921. [2] In 1922 she was damaged when a crane fell on her. [6] Later that year she was sold to Charles West, [7] who owned a sawmill at Helensville and used her to tow logs across Kaipara Harbour. [8] She had a stormy passage to Kaipara and initially had to put in to Manukau Harbour. [9] She was again put up for sale in 1944. [10]
She then became a fishing boat, a houseboat [11] (she was on the Hātea River in 1984) [12] and an America's Cup viewing boat, until, in 2010, [11] she was given to the Kerikeri Steam Trust for restoration. [13] In 2019 she was moved by road from Kerikeri to Opua. [14] 1940s Sisson marine compound steam engines were found to power her twin screws, [15] as her twin Fraser & Sons 14 hp (10 kW) engines [16] were removed when she was converted to diesel after her 1944 sale. [15] W Sisson & Co was a Gloucester engineering firm from 1889 to 1958, when it became part of Belliss and Morcom. [17] A 70 hp (52 kW) Sisson engine, from the minesweeper Oceanid, arrived in 2020 from Seattle. Another Sisson engine (8-inch high-pressure, 16-inch low-pressure cylinder, 8-inch stroke) arrived in 2022 from Lake Constance.
Minerva is currently [update] being restored for use in the Bay of Islands. In April 2024 a 6-tonne boiler, made by Lyttleton Engineering, was delivered to Opua. It is planned that she will provide tourist trips between Russell and Opua, connecting with the Bay of Islands Vintage Railway. [18]
William Crush Daldy was a captain and New Zealand politician.
Viaduct Harbour, formerly known as Viaduct Basin, is a former commercial harbour on the Auckland waterfront that has been turned into a development of mostly upscale apartments, office space and restaurants. It is located on the site of a formerly run-down area of the Freemans Bay / Auckland CBD waterfront in Auckland, New Zealand. As a centre of activity of the 2000 America's Cup hosted by the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, as well as the 2022 Rally New Zealand, the precinct enjoyed considerable popularity with locals and foreign visitors.
Papakura railway station is a railway station in Papakura, New Zealand, on the Southern Line of the Auckland railway network.
Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand Limited was once the biggest shipping line in the southern hemisphere and New Zealand's largest private-sector employer. It was incorporated by James Mills in Dunedin in 1875 with the backing of a Scottish shipbuilder, Peter Denny. Bought by shipping giant P&O around the time of World War I it was sold in 1972 to an Australasian consortium and closed at the end of the twentieth century.
Helensville railway station formerly served the town of Helensville, 60.47 km (37.57 mi) northwest of Auckland Strand, in the North Island of New Zealand. It was a stop on the North Auckland Line, and was the next major station north of Waitākere. Occasionally it was called the Helensville North Railway Station.
Henry Niccol was probably the first shipbuilder in Auckland, New Zealand. He was born in 1819 in Greenock. He was the father of George Turnbull Niccol and Malcolm Niccol (1844-1925).
Te Akeake railway station, is a station on the Opua Branch in New Zealand.
Mercer railway station in Mercer, New Zealand, is 72 km from Auckland and 609 km from Wellington on the North Island Main Trunk line. It opened on 20 May 1875 and was closed to passengers about 1970 and to goods in the 1990s. It burnt down in 1879 and also in 1900. Until 1958 it was the first refreshment stop south of Auckland.
The Northern Steam Ship Company Ltd (NSS) served the northern half of the North Island of New Zealand from 1881 to 1974. Its headquarters, the Northern Steam Ship Company Building, remains in use on Quay St, Auckland as a bar.
Fitzroy Bay is a bay close to the entrance of Wellington Harbour in New Zealand. It lies to the southeast of the entrance to the harbour, between Pencarrow Head and Baring Head. Lake Kohangatera drains into the bay through Gollans Stream.
Cowan was a fishing vessel of 30 tons net register, built in 1914. Cowan sank in 1948 near Lyttelton Harbour, New Zealand.
SS Rotomahana was an 1876 harbour steamer and the first iron vessel to be built in Auckland, though launched only 28 minutes ahead of another, though smaller, iron ship. Rotomahana was a name used by at least two other ships of the era, presumably because Rotomahana and its Pink and White Terraces had become better known after the Duke of Edinburgh visited in 1870.
Phoenix Foundry, often printed as Phœnix, was an engineering company in Auckland from 1861 to 1952. By 1900 it was on the verge of bankruptcy, but also Auckland's largest engineering works, supplying a wide range of goods and often leading in the design of equipment used to exploit the country's resources, such as timber and flax mills, crushers for gold ore and locomotives, pumps, cement and gas works and steamers. The foundry started with engineer, George Fraser, and a handful of employees, but grew to employ hundreds and operated under several names, including Fraser and Tinne and George Fraser & Sons Ltd.
PS Governor Wynyard, was a small steam ship, the first to be built in New Zealand, and was launched in 1851. She was a paddle steamer schooner, built of pohutukawa, with kauri planks. In 1853 she left her Tamaki River service in Auckland and was sold in Melbourne in 1852 during the gold rush, but was soon serving as a ferry in Tasmania, until she had her primitive engines removed in 1858. She sprang a leak and became a beached wreck in 1873.
SS Tauranga was the first coastal trading steam ship to be built in New Zealand, though a harbour steamer, Governor Wynyard, had been built at Auckland in 1851.
SS Go Ahead was a twin screw-steamer, launched on the afternoon of Saturday 20 April 1867 by Seath and Connell, of Rutherglen, for the Clyde Shipping Company, with a plan to use her in New Zealand coastal trading. She had 30, or 35 hp (26 kW), high pressure engines, and tubular boilers from Campbell & Son's foundry.
George Holdship (1839–1923) emigrated to Auckland in 1855 and became a businessman, mainly involved in timber logging and sawmills. His companies removed much of North Island’s native forest, initially kauri and later kahikatea. He moved to Sydney in 1913.
The Anchor Shipping and Foundry Company linked Nelson with other parts of New Zealand from 1870 to 1974. The company's former office remains on the quay at Nelson, as do steps of their foundry, which built one of their ships, repaired their fleet and made other machinery.
SS Wiltshire was a passenger ship built for the Federal Steam Navigation Company by John Brown's of Clydebank in 1912 to run between Britain, Australia and New Zealand. She was wrecked when she ran aground in 1922.
William Hoile Brown was a shipbuilder in Auckland from 1864 to 1918 and a local politician.