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KARAMU (1912)

Service dates: 1917-1925

Official number: 127812

Shipping lines: UNION STEAM SHIP COMPANY OF NEW ZEALAND; CANTERBURY STEAM SHIPPING COMPANY LTD.

Ship type:


General Cargo Ship.


Career

19.04.1912
Launched.
06.1912
Completed as Karamu for the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand.
24.01.1913
In a collision with the Northern Steamship Company’s Rarawa at Onehunga.
22.05.1914
Struck the wharf at Lyttelton.
01.07.1917
Takeover of the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand by The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company agreed.
01.12.1919
Stranded at Greymouth.
21.12.1921
Sold for £12,500 to the Canterbury Steam Shipping Company, Christchurch (another P&O Group subsidiary) and renamed Gale. Her registry was changed to Lyttelton. In service she proved too deep to enter Wanganui at all states of the tide.
07.03.1922
Stranded at Wanganui.
20.07.1922
Stranded at Wanganui.
08.1922
Sold back to the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand for £13,000 and reverted to her original name Karamu.
1923
Registry transferred to Sydney, NSW.
04.09.1925
On a passage from Strahan to Hobart during a storm, she hit a rock off Entrance Island, Kitchen Bay. She developed a leak and sank 1.6km (1 mile) east of South West Cape, Tasmania.


Ship technical details (PDF)