NZGSS Hinemoa

NZGSS Hinemoa Painting by Frank Barnes, 1911
History
New ZealandNew Zealand
Name:	NZGSS Hinemoa
Owner:	New Zealand Marine Department
Port of registry:	Registered No. 69016
Builder:	Robert Scott and Company, Cartsdyke, Greenock, Scotland
Cost:	£23,500
Completed:	1875
Commissioned:	1876
Decommissioned:	1944
General characteristics
Type:	3 masted steamer
Tonnage:	542 ton
Length:	207 feet
Beam:	25 ft
Draught:	15 ft
Installed power:	two compound-surface condensing engines of 150 bhp
Speed:	12 knots

NZGSS Hinemoa was a 542-ton New Zealand Government Service Steamer designed specifically for lighthouse support and servicing, and also for patrolling New Zealand's coastline and carrying out castaway checks and searching for missing ships. It operated in New Zealand's territorial waters from 1876 to 1944. It had a sister ship, the GSS Stella, which carried out similar duties over the same time period. It was instrumental in supplying many of the government castaway depots on the remote subantarctic islands, and rescuing a number of shipwreck victims, including those from the wreck of the Dundonald, the Anjou and the Spirit of the Dawn.

Captain John Fairchild used the steamer to survey the Bounty Islands and Antipodes Islands in 1886, and the Herekino Harbour and the Whangape Harbour entrance in 1889. In 1891, while under the command of Captain Fairchild, the Hinemoa searched New Zealand's subantarctic and outlying islands for traces of the missing ships Kakanui and Assaye. While no trace was found of the former, the Assaye was suspected foundered off The Snares.

The Hinemoa provided assistance to the 1907 Sub-Antarctic Islands Scientific Expedition, a substantial scientific expedition sponsored by the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, where important observations on the natural history of the islands were made. They were published in a two-volume work in 1909, edited by professor Charles Chilton.

Captain John Bollons was a notable master of the steamer from 1898; Bollons Island in the Antipodes Islands is named after him. Another to serve aboard the Hinemoa was William Edward Sanders, who won a Victoria Cross during World War I.