- Author
- A.N. Other and NHSA Webmaster
- Subjects
- Colonial navies, Ship histories and stories
- Tags
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- RAN Ships
- None noted.
- Publication
- September 1981 edition of the Naval Historical Review (all rights reserved)
By the end of WWI Amokura was fast wearing out and in 1920 she had been declared unseaworthy. The skipper of the ship was sent over to the United Kingdom to select another ship to replace her, but in 1921 the fate of the Government training ship was finally sealed. It had been decided that there was no need for a ship of this type. The merchant service could train their own men, and the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy could train sailors in the old light cruiser Philomel. The last of the Amokura boys left the ship on 16th December 1921, and the ship was sold a few months later.
Amokura now embarked on her third career, being stripped of her engines and used as a coal hulk by the Westport Coal Company, carrying on under their ownership until taken over by the Union Company in 1940.
In March 1953, the old gunboat was towed from Wellington Harbour for the last time, her days as a coal hulk over. She ended her days in Pelorus Sound, where she was used as a combined storehouse and jetty. She is still in existence, but in a very bad state. Half submerged, the old ship is still visible, a sad end for a ship that served New Zealand so well.
The Amokura Old Boys Association would have loved to have preserved the ship, but alas, funds for such a project were hard to come by. It is pleasing to note that the Sea Cadet Corps in Wellington still remember her. Their unit is known as TS Amokura.
She is gone, but not forgotten.