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Hotunui
 Sourced from www.photoship.co.uk
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Built in Kalmar, she was powered by an eight cylinder, two stroke diesel engine, and was fitted with a cruiser stern and was ice-strengthened.
She was completed in March 1949 and acquired by the Northern Steam Ship Company fourteen months later, sailing from Jarrow for Auckland with a cargo of coal.
She was soon a regular sight at both Auckland and Onehunga, as well as Tauranga, Lyttelton and Dunedin, with the odd call at Oamaru to load hydrated lime for Tauranga.
Cars were regularly carried on deck, but on one particular voyage in December 1953, she had 35 cars on board, with the holds having to be used to ensure all could be loaded. No prizes for guessing what some people were getting from Santa that year!
She endured two engine breakdowns - near Lyttelton in September 1955 and near Gisborne fifteen months later - while operating for Northern, but boy oh boy, did she have her moments after leaving the Northern fleet!
She also had some interesting owners, not the least of which was Luggate Game Packers, who acquired her in 1967, removed her cargo handling gear and replaced it with helipads! - she became a helicopter base for venison recovery operations in Fiordland, with refrigerated cargo space for 2500 deer carcasses.
Capricorn Fisheries, of Wellington, chartered her in 1969 to serve as a mothership during the Chatham Islands crayfish boom. During this charter, her name was changed to "CHM 190", but once off charter, "Hotunui" was once more prominent on her bow and stern while she was laid up at Port Chalmers.
In 1970, she was used to tow a barge to New Hebrides, and while there served as a beef processing unit before being acquired by Alco Company, an Italian tuna fishing company, in 1971. The Philippines would be her new base.
Cue the start of the serious mishaps. On 13 June 1971, while en route from Noumea to Suva for a refit and overhaul as a fishing vessel, "Hotunui" suffered a serious engine room explosion and fire, with one of the engine room crew injured in the process.
Her distress call was overheard by Suva Radio and a Qantas 707 flying at 30,000 feet! The flight crew located the ship and descended to 1500 feet to briefly serve as an information relay station before continuing her journey - an interesting tale for the passengers to tell!
A year later, she had changed hands again, Alcon Company acquiring her for their tuna-fishing operations as a go-between - "Hotunui" would collect the fish from the other vessels in the fleet and take it to Singapore for grading and canning.
While under tow in July 1972, she hit a reef, damaging her rudder and propeller. Then she suffered a stranding in the Philippines in June 1974.
In October 1976, she loaded a $1m cargo of prawns in Penang, destination Sydney. The product never reached its destination, however! During the voyage, she suffered a refrigeration breakdown and put in to Honiara, where the cargo was sold - much to the chagrin of insurers, whose interests included tracking down the proceeds of their sale!
Alcon sold her to Panamanian interests in 1977, at which time she was briefly named "Alco Trento" before Mexican operators purchased her and renamed her "Jado Trader".
Very soon afterwards, in April that year, she was reported missing with all hands in the Pacific Ocean. She was eventually found, but while there was no references to the fate of her crew, this ship's eventful life came to an end in 1987, when she was scuttled off the Honduran coast to become an artificial fish reef.
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Sourced from Ships of NZ Facebook page