Tugs sold after 40 years on job

Port Otago tugs Rangi and Karetai have been sold to a Queensland towage company, and will leave Otago Harbour in the next few days. Photo by Gerard O'Brien.
Port Otago tugs Rangi and Karetai have been sold to a Queensland towage company, and will leave Otago Harbour in the next few days. Photo by Gerard O'Brien.

Rangi and Karetai have been familiar sights on Otago Harbour for about 40 years, but the long-serving tug boats will be little more than a memory come Monday.

The hard-working duo have been sold by Port Otago, and will leave the harbour in the next few days, bound for Australia.

Port Otago chief executive Geoff Plunket said one of the tugs was expected to leave as early as today and the other was expected to leave on Sunday.

The 208-tonne, 28.75m x 9.73m pair would travel to Port Lyttelton, where they would be put in dry dock for maintenance and survey next week before heading to Queensland, he said.

''By the end of the weekend, they'll be away.

''If you want to catch one last glimpse of them, you haven't got long.''

Both tugs were built on the foreshore in Dunedin by the Otago Harbour Board.

Rangi was launched on June 18, 1974 and completed in August 1974, and Karetai entered the water on July 12, 1975 and was completed in October 1975.

Mr Plunket said a confidentiality agreement signed by Port Otago prevented him from disclosing the tugs' sale price, where they would be based and the names of their new owners.

However, he said their new home would be in a small port somewhere in Queensland, where they would continue to be used for commercial ship towage.

''Of course, they are about 40 years old, but they are in excellent condition for their age, and so the price we got for them was fair and reflective. They do have a life ahead of them.

''They'll suit a small port where they have smaller vessels and they don't have a lot of shipping movements.''

john.lewis@odt.co.nz

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