M. V. Tuhoe: 97ft Niccol Trading Scow
Build Date
1919
Boat Builder
George Niccol
Length
97 Feet
Beam
Unknown
Building Tuhoe and World War Two
The boat Tuhoe was named after the Tuhoe iwi and launched on the 7th April 1919 in Auckland. She was built by George Niccol out of triple skin kauri and was 97 foot long on launch day. Tuhoe was built for the Northern Steamship Company and as such she was built to handle travelling in the small rivers and harbours of Northland and the Coromandel. She was built to be a double masted schooner with two 60hp engines that were salvaged from the ship Eunice in Glasgow.
The New Zealand Navy requisitioned Tuhoe during World War Two and then sold her to the United States Army. The US Army gave Tuhoe the number USATS 132 and used her to carry supplies between Australia and New Guinea to aid the fight against the Japanese.
Even though she wasn’t a warship, Tuhoe was fitted with two 50-calibre Browning machine guns. Her time with the US Army almost ended in August 1944 when Tuhoe was laid up in Townsville and marked “surplus, for return to New Zealand” but she was put back into action in October that year. Whilst serving with the US Army Tuboe’s engines were replaced, first with Chrysler truck motors as marine engines were scarce and then with almost new marine diesel engines in 1944.
Tuhoe After World War Two
After the war Tuhoe was returned to NZ and went back to trading in the Auckland region but it was not all plain sailing. She was laid up three times between 1956 and 1960.
In August 1961, T Eckford and Co. of Blenheim purchased Tuhoe and towed her to the Opawa River. But this was not a successful venture as she was found to be ill-equipped to work the Wairau river unlike her colleague A.S. Echo.
In early 1962 she was sold to the Kaiapoi Shipping Company and moved to Kaiapoi in April 1962. She was used for trading between Kaiapoi and Wellington until November 1963 when the ferries started to dominate the trade.
With her main business unfeasible Tuhoe was converted to fishing boat but a leak led to her being declared un-seaworthy and she was laid up in Kaiapoi.
Charles Williams used Tuhoe as floating art gallery for some time after this but not much changed for Tuhoe until the Cure Boating Club Inc. brought her in October 1980. They wanted to use her as their club rooms but they also wanted to restore her. So eight people started the restoration project.
Restoring Tuhoe
The MV Tuhoe Preservation Society was then formed in 1982 and they even had 100 member at one time. The society leased Tuhoe from the Cure Boating Club Inc. and kicked off more restoration work. The goal of this work was to use the Tuhoe to take people on cruises up the river and across the Waimakairi bar to get a feel for how Tuhoe worked in the past. They turned the cargo-hold into a refreshments station and put a small museum on board.
In 2000 Tuhoe spent two months in Lyttleton getting extensive work done on her hull. But in late 2001 a dispute arose between the Tuhoe Preservation Society and the Cure Boating Club which could not be resolved so after two years of mediation the lease returned to the Cure Boating Club and the Tuhoe Preservation Society was closed.
In late 2003 the Cure Boating Club put Tuhoe up for tender. The tender was won by MainPower New Zealand and Kaiapo Electricity which formed the Kaiapoi Riverton Trust. They took ownership of Tuhoe and six trustees took responsibility for managing Tuhoe. With the formation of this trust, Tuhoe started her regular sailing in June 2005.
The End of Tuhoe
Only ten years later, at 4pm on Sunday 27 September 2015 disaster struck the Tuhoe. Travelling back to Kaiapoi from Lyttleton, Tuhoe ran aground at the Waimakariri river mouth. This had happened once before in 1963 when she was re-floated on the 1st July but this time she would not be re-floated.
Tuhoe had been in Lyttleton for repairs totaling $200,000 and was returning home when she ran aground on a sand bar. At the time Tuhoi was skippered by Monk who was travelling with three crew. Monk had completed 162 trips with Tuhoe and was an experienced skipper. He recounted on the night a wave hit the Tuhoe which pushed her off course and onto the sandbar. Both Monk and the Kaiapoi Riverton Trust Chairman Philip Redmond acknowledged that Tuhoe was a “cow of a thing to steer” so once it started towards the bar there was nothing that could be done.
After the boat ran aground the crew stayed on board overnight but Tuhoe was taking on water and the sand under the stern hollowed out putting too much stress on the hull structure. The boat was not strong enough to re-float. Redmond was quoted as saying that the Tuhoe had been assessed by a surveyor who declared it would be too risky to try and save her. The crew was told to evacuate and Tuhoe needed to be demolished at low tide.
Tuhoe sat on the beach for some time becoming a kind of attraction whilst teams worked to remove memorabilia including the steering wheel, photographs and life buoys. They also removed the wheelhouse and mast as well as pollutants like oil, cleaners and thinners. March Construction were involved in the salvage of the ship and they stated the boat had been cut into three pieces to move it off the seabed. The salvage of the Tuhoi was outlined on Stuff. After Tuhoe had been removed an inquiry into the accident by Maritime New Zealand found that no one could be held responsible for the incident.
References
To research MV Tuhoe we used Waimakariri Libraries page on the History of the MV Tuhoe and several Stuff articles about the grounding and salvage of Tuhoe in 2015.
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