Maritime History of the Great Lakes

Scanner, v. 35, no. 7 (April 2003), p. 7

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7. Ship of the Month - cont'd. ly, a small visor over the centre window. The pilothouse face and sides were finished in varnished teak, as were the bridge deck bulwarks. A tall and heavy foremast rose out of the after end of the forecastle. The main cabin aft was fairly large, with an overhang of the deck above along its sides. Lifeboats were carried atop that overhang in the vessel's early years, but they were removed when she came to the lakes and from then on she carried only inflatable rafts. On the upper deck aft was located a small deckhouse which contained assorted equipment, and out of this rose the fairly short and tubby smokestack, which had a jauntily raked top. Two ra­ ther tall vent pipes were located close to the stack. The light pipe main­ mast was stepped just forward of the after cabin, while at its after end, a snort but fairly heavy pole with gaff was set; it could be described either as an overgrown jackstaff or an undergrown mizzen mast. Unlike ALFRED EVERARD, which ran for the company in British coastal trades for many years, the ETHEL flew the Everard red and white houseflag only un­ til 1963, when she was sold to the West River Shipping Company Ltd., also of London. She was converted to a cement carrier, renamed (b) GUARDIAN CARRIER, and almost immediately was chartered to New Zealand Cement Holdings Ltd., of Dunedin, New Zealand. The conversion included considerable internal work, involved the addition of a trunk in the well deck and the fitting of much equipment on the deck between the bridge structure and the after cabin, and a boom was attached to the aft face of the bridge to help handle the cargo hose. The rebuilding changed her tonnage to 1539 Gross and 694 Net. It is likely that GUARDIAN CARRIER made her way west from England across the Atlantic Ocean and through the Panama Canal towards her new home "down un­ der", where she arrived in April of 1964. West River Shipping sold GUARDIAN CARRIER in 1965 to New Zealand Cement Holdings Ltd., which then operated her under the New Zealand flag, registered at Dunedin. Back in 1963, the Milburn Lime & Cement Company had merged with the fledg­ ling New Zealand Cement Company Ltd., whose cement plant at Westport on Cape Foulwind, on the northwest shore of the South Island of New Zealand, had been up and running for five years. The subsequent company became known as New Zealand Cement Holdings Ltd. In 1988, the company changed its name to Milburn New Zealand Ltd. The company is now wholly owned by Swiss-based Holderbank Group, which has an interest in 60 cement works worldwide. The Westport facility currently produces 450, 000 tons of cement annually, the cargoes being carried by its vessels WESTPORT and MILBURN CARRIER 2. According to her logs, GUARDIAN CARRIER began the 1966 season on January 15, loading cement at Westport. Forty cement cargoes were delivered to three destinations that year. Port Onehunga (South Auckland, North Island) re­ ceived 21 loads, Napier (Hawke Bay, east coast of North Island) received 16 loads, and Deep Cove (Doubtful Sound, near the southwest tip of South Island) the remainder, for a seasonal total of 58, 260 tons delivered. The following season saw a slightly smaller tonnage carried to the same ports: 17 cargoes to Onehunga, 15 to Napier and 6 to Deep Cove, for a total of 55, 788 tons delivered. The 1968 season again saw 38 cargoes delivered to the same three ports. The engineroom log of GUARDIAN CARRIER for the period 26 February to 31 May, 1972, shows that most of her trips were from Westport to Onehunga. She made a few trips to Napier, and one return trip to Westport took her via Gisborne (north of Napier on the east coast, North Island). On one trip from Westport to Napier, late in May, the ship made an unusual call at Wellington to seek medical assistance for a sick crew member. Her service seems to have been intermittent during the following years. It Has been reported that GUARDIAN CARRIER sailed for the Guardian Cement Com­ pany, which may have been a subsidiary of New Zealand Cement Holdings Ltd., although we suspect that Guardian Cement simply was a brand name used by the

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