The Ultimate New Zealand Soccer Website | home
Tainui | Takapu | Tangaroa | Taranui | Tarapunga | Tarihiko | Tasi | Taupata | Tawanui | Thor Star | Tiare Moana | Titoki | Titoki | Toa Moana | Totara | Totara | Towai | Turihaua | Union Nelson | Unitedgeo 1 | United Sailor | Unit Shipper | Verao | Vili | Viti | Waiotahi | Wellington Exporter | Western Spruce | Westport | Westport | Zephyr II
Vili
 |
||||||||||||||||||||
Built in Falkenbergs, she was powered by two 1750hp diesels, providing a service speed of 13 knots. She had a crew of 14, and had no hatch coamings - a number of joined pontoons, opening in concertina fashion, made up the hatches, although sealing the pontoons to prevent water entering the holds was a problem throughout the ship's life.
Starfish Shipping, a joint venture involving Warner Pacific Line which was established in tax-free Vanuatu, acquired the vessel for $US1m in 1979, and on her delivery voyage to the Pacific, she set sail from Wismar, Germany, via Gdansk and the Panama Canal with a cargo of bagged cement destined for Pago Pago, American Samoa.
However, the issue with the pontoons meant that water entered the hold and ruined the cargo. Had the bilge pumps not been able to handle the combination of water and wet cement, the ship may well have gone down en route!
The name "Vili" was in honour of Viliami Vifafisi, a ship's electrician who died in a fire aboard the Warner Pacific Line ship "Kemphaan" on 11 June 1978, when the ship was under way from Timaru en route to Apia, Vavau and Nuku'alofa.
The original plan was to employ "Vili" on a liner service linking Tonga, Samoa and other Pacific Islands with Honolulu, but insufficient cargo and the global oil crisis of the day brought an early conclusion to that arrangement. Charter voyages carrying bulk grain cargoes from Australia to Papua New Guinea, and trading to Kiribati, also proved unprofitable.
A regular visitor to Onehunga throughout the 1980s, she was a key component of the Warner Pacific Line-managed fleet for the first half of that decade, but she was eventually put up for sale. Her final voyage saw her carrying a cargo to China, but she broke down off the Chinese coast before eventually being towed to the port of Tongu, near Tianjin, where she was broken up in 1987.
Before that occurred, however, salvage costs were claimed by the Chinese authorities for the use of their tug in towing the vessel to the anchorage at a speed of 11 knots! The claim was settled by selling "Vili" to the claimants at 'the right price'. This allowed the crew to fly home to Tonga in April 1987.
Five years earlier, she departed Westport for Onehunga on 6 June, but didn't arrive until mid-July! She was heading down the Buller River when her rudder jammed hard to port, leaving "Vili" broadside on to the entrance. Her stern struck the eastern breakwater before the local tug could re-establish control of the situation and tow her back to the wharf.
That turned out to be a costly collision, as it damaged her propeller, meaning a spell in Lyttelton drydock was in order. Towed by the tug "Herenui", she made the voyage from Westport in 74 hours, a period which included 26 hours sheltering in Port Hardy from inclement weather. A further two-day wait for the drydock to be cleared was required, then a six-day window for repair work was available until the next scheduled docking took place.
A further fortnight was lost until she could re-dock again, on July 12, and three days later, fully repaired, she was Onehunga-bound once more.
|
Some of the information above is sourced from "Ocean Of Light", the autobiography of Peter Warner, and is used with his kind permission.