A ship with a Hollywood connection
A long-time Timaru fisherman is calling on the community to help save a well-known ship from the scrap heap.
Gordon Mitchell, 69, believes the Rangatira, which made the regular voyage between Timaru and the Chatham Islands for 15 years and appeared in the film The World’s Fastest Indian, could be a long-term gem and potential future attraction for Timaru.
‘‘It would be a really great tourist attraction for Timaru ... I bet everyone that goes to Invercargill goes to the Burt Munro Museum.’’
Mitchell, who has been fishing out of Timaru since he was 14 and has in recent years docked his own boat - the Meagan-J - beside the Rangatira, is realistic about the cost of his idea.
‘‘All it would take would be someone to invest quite a lot of money in it and do it up, so it met safety standards,’’ he said.
Despite the potential expense, he believed his idea is worth floating before it was too late.
‘‘The thing is, once you lose it, it’s lost,’’ Mitchell said.
In May, a High Court Justice ruled the ship, formerly owned by Timaru maritime industry veteran Kelvin Leslie, be sold to pay off more than $170,000 owed to PrimePort.
Leslie’s company, South East Shipping Ltd, used the ship to transport livestock between Timaru and Owenga, in the Chatham Islands, for more than 15 years. The Rangatira made its final voyage to the Chatham Islands in 2015.
It also featured in the film The World’s Fastest Indian, in which Anthony Hopkins played Kiwi motorsport legend Burt Munro, as the vessel Munro set sail for America on with his motorcycle. The crew of the ship, along with a handful of locals, were cast as extras in the film.
Leslie said he would ‘‘like to see the old girl running again’’ but questioned the logistics around pulling the ship ashore for a tourist attraction.
He believed the cost of this would be ‘‘so great’’ and thought the ship would most likely be bought by an overseas buyer.
A report by liquidator Christopher Horton, in April last year, said cashflow difficulties resulted in Leslie going into a joint partnership with Norfolk Island Shipping while the Rangatira was for sale in 2015.
When the Rangatira failed to sell on the open market, ‘‘disputes arose’’ between the two shipping companies.
Norfolk Island Shipping applied to the High Court in Timaru to liquidate South East Shipping.
At the time Horton said the Rangatira, which was the company’s main asset, was not able to be sold by the liquidators because Leslie had a shipping mortgage and general security agreement over it.
PrimePort chief executive Phil Melhopt said the ship was still under judicial sale which had not been concluded.
‘‘We just want to see it out of the harbour,’’ he said.
Melhopt said while he was not sure of the logistics of pulling the ship ashore, he was aware similar tourist attractions had been done in the past.
Another option was to sink the vessel for use as a recreational dive wreck, which again was not a simple exercise as there were logistics around that, he said.
Aoraki Tourism industry partnerships manager Henrietta Hazlett said ‘‘we’d support and help promote any new ventures that offered tourists more things to see in this amazing district’’.
Newly elected Timaru councillor and CBD Group chairman Nigel Bowen said he was unsure of the logistics involved in such a project and where the costs would lie.
However, he said there were examples of similar types of tourist attraction elsewhere, and the prospect of any type of tourist attraction was positive.
The tender for the ship is being offered by SeaBoat, a marine brokerage.
Senior broker John Kearns said there had been expressions of interest in the ship.
The tender closes on October 27.