Annual General Meeting.

The AGM will be held in Wellington on October 9th at the Wellington Museum of City and Sea. The AGM will start at 9.30 am and following the meeting, a program of speakers and presentations on maritime heritage subjects will be held from 10.30 am to 4.30pm. A get-together dinner at a local restaurant in the evening will be a chance to socialize and a coffee meet on the waterfront Sunday morning followed by a visit to the MAANZ maritime conservation facilities on the floating crane Hikitia will provide further opportunity to discuss subjects of interest. Members of Maritime Association of NZ (MAANZ), NZ Historical Places Trust and other maritime groups will be invited to the seminar, which will be free to NZUHG members but non-members will be charged a door fee.

A World War II minefield believed to have been laid off the entrance to Lyttelton Harbour on Banks Peninsula, has eluded navy searchers as port authorities plan to dredge a deeper channel.

The 10 mines, thought to weigh up to 1000kg each, were apparently laid by the German minelayer, Adjutant, in June, 1941.

They were not moored but lay on the seabed and were detonated by the acoustic or magnetic activity of ships passing overhead.

None of the mines exploded and no ships were sunk and the navy believes over the years the mines sank into the "glutinous ooze" of the seabed.

Tuhoe Tales

The story of a motor ship saved from the scrapper by Colin Amodeo

128 pages, B & W photographs, maps, and sketches plus colour insert published by the MV Tuhoe Kaiapoi Rivertown Trust
Available from Kaiapoi and Rangiora bookshops, Kaiapoi i-SITE or contact Kaiapoi Promotion Association directly.

There are two parts to Tuhoe Tales – the first based on tape-recorded interviews made in 1985-86 with her wartime master, Edwin Couldrey of Auckland, as well as from his 1987 memoirs; together with extracts from wartime USN Chief Officer Philip Walker’s diary and the recollections of several former wartime Tuhoe crew members.

Karitane by the Sea - Whalers, Traders and Fishermen

John H. Brock’s delightful painting of the old wharf and store at Karitane Beach in 1923 touches on the history, commerce and seaside holidays that are all part of the Karitane story. (Hocken Library, 24.052.)

Karitane is a little township and fishing port at the mouth of the Waikouaiti River on the coast north of Dunedin. Outside the area the name Karitane probably conjures up images of babies and association with Sir Truby King, the founder of the Plunket movement. While Karitane By the Sea does bring out the role of Sir Truby King in the development of fishing at Karitane, and of the township itself, this story is focused on the more than 170 years of shipping through the Port of Waikouaiti.