1985: GMV Wairua
September 8, 2019
By AHNZ
This week in history: 9 September, 1985; Wairua’s last New Zealand Crossing.
GMV Wairua was built by The State in 1961 to serve as freight and passenger ferry over the hard core stretch of water between the South Island and Stewart Island; Foveaux Strait.
In 1985, as with so many other things, the new Labour 4.0 Government ended this socialised commerce and sold off the asset. A new, private, service replaced the GMV (Government Motor Vehicle) and, as with so many other things, I assume, proceeded to secure a similar monopoly as the Wairua had via special licences and rent seeking but this time Labour 4.0 would be the issuer. And they called that having ‘a free market revolution.’
It was a sad and sentimental time for the people of Southland and Stewart Island to lose their old wooden boat of 24 years. Their own local control over their own territory had long since been handed over to Wellington though, and the new Bosses owed the National-voting Southlanders no favours.
After a spruce up, Wairua was sold privately to Fijians and operated out of Suva under the same name. However, her treatment in the tropics was not kind and she was soon found to be getting “old” and delicate.
In 1992 the Fijians sold Wairua to their Rotuma Island cousins for $250,000 which was a big investment for them. All was going well until they crashed it into their coast at Kadavu reef in 1993. Ordinarily this would involve years or decades of inaction and hand-wringing over blame, insurance, and who is going to move this ugly unwanted ship out of the way? According to one source this may have gone on until 2015!
However, according to others*, the wounded New Zealander was surrendered to her watery graveyard by August 1993.
She now sits as a wreck off the promontory at Naikorokoro just north a bit from Nadi.
Possibly Wairua now makes for a dive wreck for wealthy tourists?
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* Ref naviearmatori.net and shipspotting.com
Ref. Peter R Nuttall thesis (2013)
Image Ref. Stewart Island – Home Land; Facebook page, 31 May 2014
Image Ref. Video; Noel Lee Video Productions via Southland’s Past FB page
2 thoughts on "1985: GMV Wairua"
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This is an article written with a political bias and some inaccuracies. The WAIRUA I sailed on as a young boy was certainly not a wooden boat the original may have been. If you want to recruit others to your cause this is not the way to do it.
I cannot find my source for this being a wooden boat and since it seems highly unlikely I’ve struck that bit out. Thanks for the correction. Please feel free to do so if you can also correct my politics.