Build Date
1920
Boat Builder
Geoge T Niccol
Length
99 feet
Draught
7 feet
Building Motu and Her Early Trading Days
Motu was built by George T Niccol of Auckland for the Northern Steamship Company in 1920. She was built to be an auxiliary schooner but was changed to ketch rigged in 1922 and later converted again to a motor vessel in 1938. Sometimes Motu is said to be a scow but this wasn’t really true. During her early years Motu traded between Auckland, Awanui, Tairoa and sometimes Opotiki.
In 1949 Motu was sold to the Karamea Shipping Company in 1949. The Karamea Shipping Company was originally based in Karamea but they moved their operation to Nelson after the 1929 earthquake destroyed Karamea Harbour for shipping. They worked both Motu and Te Aroha out of Tasman Bay on the Wellington and Lyttleton runs.
Motu in Tasman Bay
In the 1950s Motu transported fruit out of Tasman Bay. This work was very labour intensive as loading and unloading the boat involved a lot of manual labour. The cases were manually loaded onto pallets which were swung onto the boat using her derricks and then lowered into the hold where the cases were restacked again by hand. As such, during apple season extra men were needed to work the long hours needed to load and unload Motu. As well as the hard work the tides were also important as they affected when Motu could arrive and leave.
In the 1960s Motu’s skipper was Barnie Marshall but his tenure would not last long as Motu was accidentally crushed in Lyttleton Harbour by the Inter-Island ferry Maori on 28 February 1962. She was deemed irreparable and was sold to Skeggs Fisheries. They steamed Motu to Port Chalmers where they re-used her diesel engines by putting them into fishing trawlers and her two masts were used for oyster dredges. Motu’s hull was stripped down and burned in 1964.
References
To research the boat Motu we used the book Motueka Wharf 100 Years by Carol Dawber with Motueka and districts Historical Association.
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