NZGSS ''Hinemoa'' was a 542-ton New Zealand Government Service Steamer designed specifically for lighthouse support and servicing, and also for patrolling New Zealand's coastline and carrying out castaway checks and searching for missing ships. It operated in New Zealand's

territorial waters The term territorial waters is sometimes used informally to refer to any area of water over which a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potent ...

from 1876 to 1944. It was instrumental in supplying many of the government

castaway depot A castaway depot is a store or hut placed on an isolated island to provide emergency supplies and relief for castaways and victims of shipwrecks. A string of depots were built by the New Zealand government on their subantarctic islands in the ...

s on the remote subantarctic islands, and rescuing a number of shipwreck victims, including those from the wreck of the , the and the .

History

Captain John Fairchild used the steamer to survey the Bounty Islands and

Antipodes Islands The Antipodes Islands ( Maōri: Moutere Mahue; "Abandoned island") are inhospitable and uninhabited volcanic islands in subantarctic waters to the south of – and territorially part of – New Zealand. The 21 km2 archipelago lies 860 ...

in 1886, and the Herekino Harbour and the Whangape Harbour entrance in 1889. In 1891, while under the command of Captain Fairchild, the ''Hinemoa'' searched New Zealand's subantarctic and outlying islands for traces of the missing ships ''Kakanui'' and ''Assaye''. While no trace was found of the former, the ''Assaye'' was suspected foundered off

The Snares The Snares Islands / Tini Heke, known colloquially as The Snares, is a group of uninhabited islands lying about 200 km south of New Zealand's South Island and to the south-southwest of Stewart Island / Rakiura. The Snares consist of the ma ...

GSS_Stella_Northport_Chalky_Inlet_Aotearoa_New_Zealand

The ''Hinemoa'' provided assistance to the Sub-Antarctic Islands scientific expedition of 1907, a substantial scientific expedition sponsored by the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, where important observations on the natural history of the islands were made. They were published as a two-volume work in 1909, edited by professor

Charles Chilton Charles Chilton MBE (15 June 1917 – 2 January 2013) was a British presenter, writer and producer who worked on BBC Radio. He created the 1950s radio serials ''Riders of the Range'' and ''Journey into Space'', and also inspired the stage ...

. Captain

John Bollons John Peter Bollons (10 November 1862 – 18 September 1929) was a New Zealand marine captain, naturalist and ethnographer. For many years he captained New Zealand government steamers, including the NZGSS ''Hinemoa'', which undertook lighthouse ...

was a notable master of the steamer from 1898;

Bollons Island Bollons Island () is a small island in New Zealand's subantarctic Antipodes Islands group. It is the second largest island in the group behind Antipodes Island. Geography The island is roughly crescent-shaped, and has an area of . It lies to the ...

in the

is named after him. Another to serve aboard the ''Hinemoa'' was William Edward Sanders, who won a

Victoria Cross The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously ...

during World War I. It had a sister ship, the GSS ''Stella'', which carried out similar duties over the same time period. After its decommissioning in 1944, it was rejected for scrapping due to an oversupply at the time. A 1919 photo album from the ship was found in a Danish

antique shop An antique shop (or antiques shop) is a retail store specializing in the selling of antiques. Antiques shops can be located either locally or, with the advent of the Internet, found online. An antiques shop can also be located within an ant ...

and brought to Canterbury Museum in 2023. It is unknown how or when the album came to Denmark.

Footnotes

Sources

* Marshall, B. (2005)
"From Sextants to Satellites: A Cartographic Timeline for New Zealand"
''New Zealand Map Society Journal''. 18. . * Peat, N. (2003). ''Subantarctic New Zealand: A Rare Heritage''. Invercargill:

Department of Conservation An environmental ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for the environment and/or natural resources. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of the Environment ...

. . * Watt, J. P. C. (1989). ''Stewart Island's Kaipipi Shipyard and the Ross Sea Whalers''. Havelock North: JPC Watt.

External links

''Hinemoa''
– New Zealand Maritime Record

- Scan of diary kept by Sanders whilst on the vessel. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hinemoa 1875 ships Steamships of New Zealand Merchant ships of New Zealand World War I merchant ships of New Zealand World War II merchant ships of New Zealand Ships built on the River Clyde