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Auckland Express
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Built in Shanghai, she is powered by one 3900hp Akasaka diesel, producing a service speed of 13 knots. She has a crew of nineteen.
She can carry 310 TEU, and her two cranes are each capable of lifting 36 tonnes. Her box-shaped hold is 280,000 cubic feet in size.
 Sourced from TEL Facebook group page
She arrived in Onehunga on 6 September 1985, discharging fifty containers and loading eighty on Tasman Express Line's trans-tasman service, which also entailed visits to Sydney, Melbourne, Lyttelton and Wellington. Her departure next day earned her a photo in the NZ Herald - see the last pic in the "Just In Passing" section of the website!
You always knew when "Auckland Express" and her sister ship, "Canterbury Express" were in the Manukau. The combination of their full loads and the shallow nature of the harbour meant that when transiting same, the wake of both vessels was brown in colour - they were literally serving as dredgers, scraping the Wairopa Channel clear!
 Sourced from TEL Facebook group page
She was carrying special deck cargo when she left Onehunga on 5 January 1988, bound for Sydney. The former Auckland Harbour Board pilot boat "Akarana" had been completely restored and relaunched at Greenhithe a month earlier, and was New Zealand's gift to Australia to mark that country's bicentennial year.
TEL was a joint venture by four groups - McKay Shipping, George H. Scales, Refrigerated Freight Lines and Hetherington & Kingsbury - which was set up to cash in on new trade deals under the Closer Economic Relations agreement between New Zealand and Australia. They initially opted to use Onehunga rather than Auckland because it reduced the trans-tasman crossing by 200 miles, or eighteen hours.
 The two-vessel service was expected to add approximately 120,000 tonnes to the annual cargo load handled at Onehunga.
"AuckEx" endured a couple of incidents at Onehunga, suffering a minor fire in 1987 - neither ship nor cargo was damaged - while a grounding in the Manukau - off French Bay at 1730 on 4 February 1990, after heading towards shore to avoid a small vessel - resulted in damage to her bow thruster. She ended up berthing at 2000, after a combination of the tide, her engines and the tug "Manukau" pulled her clear.
Since sailing the Tasman, she has served a fistful of owners, and operated in the Persian Gulf under the Panamanian flag until June 2019, when she made her final voyage, Alang, the world's ship-breaking capital, her destination.
 Sourced from TEL Facebook group page
While sailing under the name "Janna" on 10 December 1996, on a voyage from Port Harcourt to Takoradi in the Gulf of Guinea, she suffered a mutiny on board. Her German Master and Chief Engineer were thought to have been murdered and thrown overboard during a drinking session which went awry and involved two Polish crew members.
The five remaining crew locked themselves in the wheelhouse and bridge for safety initially, but eventually hatched a successful plan to apprehend their rebellious colleagues, who were handed over to the authorities in Abidjan.
Information partly sourced from Gavin McLean's book
"We Were Different - The Tasman Express Line Story"
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Sourced from TEL Facebook group page