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Melva
 Sourced from Sea The Ships
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Composite built of first class kauri on steel framing by United Ship & Boatbuilders and Steel Ships in Auckland as a powered lighter for the US Navy in 1945, the cessation of hostilities saw them cancel the order, which was taken over by the NZ Government's Marine Department.
She was completed in 1946 and immediately chartered by Holm Shipping for the cement and dolomite trades in Tarakohe and Onekaka. During her two-year charter, she made her solitary call at Onehunga in September 1947.
A year later, she was chartered by tthe Union Manufacturing & Export Co. of Petone, who employed her in salvaging US war material in the Pacific. They acquired her a year later, but after being damaged off Papua New Guinea, and badly holed on a reef near Mackay, she was laid up in Wellington's Shelly Bay in 1950.
The Greymouth Shipping Company acquired her in August 1951, but three years later she was laid up in Wellington again, and it took two further years for her to be sold to Rarotongan interests.
Hong Kong interests acquired her in 1957, but she was arrested in Townsville four years later for debt issues, and never sailed again, "Melva" being scuttled by explosives near Keelar Reef, fifty miles from Townsville, on 2 September 1966.
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