Hi all,
90% certain that "Milburn Carrier II"'s thirty-year career on the NZ coast is coming to an end in approximately six weeks.
After spending almost all of 2017 laid up in Nelson, "Buffalo" comes out of the Devonport drydock very shortly and will be arriving in Timaru circa Feb 2. "MC2" has a few more voyages lined up beyond that, but is heading from Lyttelton to Auckland on March 7, according to the latest schedules.
That'll be her first visit to Auckland, and likely her last. When she sails from there, I fully expect a crew supplied by new owners will be on board. Will keep you posted.
She first arrived here on 15 March 1988, and was laid up at Westport for four months while a manning issue was resolved.
Talking of "Westport", now "Fjordvik", she's still fully employed in Scandinavia, having sailed from Aalborg (her Danish home port) to Slite (Sweden) this week. She's currently en route to Slemmestad (Norway).
That other long-time servant of the coast, "Golden Bay", is now employed in the Mediterranean, and after a spell in Turkey, is currently on a voyage from Malta to Albania. Her new owners retained her name.
BTW, I recently carried out a full update of
www.ultimatenzsoccer.com/Onehunga/ with more info to come. I'm currently working towards getting details of all ship movements at the Port between 1946 and June 1961, which will leave me with a total of seventy years' worth of movements.
Cheers,
JR