Koputai was an Otago tug built by Wingate’s in 1876, a few years before they failed. She was built for a partnership that included James Mills who started the Union Steamship Company, and due to the work of David de Maus among others, she appears in a lot of photos of other ships towing in or out past the heads. She usually appears alongside the tow, with the smaller screw tug “Plucky” leading.
In 1882 one of the Union Companies steamers had some sort of issues with the engine room telegraph and rammed her at her moorings. She was repaired and refloated, reboilered in 1906 and sold to a Sydney towing company in 1917. In 1920 she split a seam and sank very quickly in about 80m of water a few miles off Bondi beach - the wreck is apparently popular with technical divers.
This is an idea that has grown from the original intention of a 1/64 scale waterline scenic model for a model railway scene based on Port Chalmers. Since as far as I know there are no surviving drawings, getting something to work with has been a matter of reverse perspective work from a few photos and a process more akin to sculpture than engineering – knocking a bit more off here and there so that it looks right, and makes sense. So after a few months on and off fiddling and tweaking the basic proportions and major items look about right.
I have rather fallen for her, with her boiler and funnel ahead of the enormous looking paddleboxes; having the boiler forward of the engines is a definte rarity - I can only think of a couple of other tugs that had this feature , including “Mana” which was built for Timaru and ended up on the West Coast helping colliers past the bar at Greymouth. She definitely needs a bigger model, though I might be reluctant to call her “Koputai” due to the fact that she has been entirely reconstructed from photos and register dimensions and any actual correspondence with the original is possibly as much by chance as intent. “Potakere” was the Maori name for Port Chalmers before the Free Kirk decided that the far end of the harbour was the ideal place for their New Edinburgh settlement so perhaps I will call her that when I do the bigger model.
There are a few things that aren’t at all clear from the few photos I have, but for model railway accessory they could be perhaps be disguised with coiled ropes and the odd tarpaulin sheet that seems to have “fallen off” one the railway wagons on the wharf.
• I’m still not clear about the arrangement of the forward companion, which seems to have been designed for hobbits as I can’t see a sliding section above the doors
• There’s a capstan on the afterdeck – I am inclined to wonder if the steam engine and controls for this are in the little extension behind the engine room
• Was there a towing hook and where was it? The great majority of photos show here alongside the tow with the smaller screw tug “Plucky” leading – single-engined paddle tugs were rather limited in their manoeuvrability; the hook wouldn’t have seen much use in harbour, but she did get out and about which suggests there should be fittings for one aft and perhaps forward, though it’s just possible that she relied on the four timberheads and don’t have a hook
• The bridge is pure speculation - I’ve drawn a pair Chadburns, but she might well have relied on voice pipes and/or orders shouted down though the engine room skylight
• I think there was probably a hawser basket aft
• Lines haven’t been developed yet – that’s the next step
Criticism and comment welcome. I still don’t know very much about tugs and towing so there might be some very obvious howlers, though I do know much more than I did when I started.
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