GALLIONS REACH

It is really amazing the interest that the old ships of the Leith Shipyards of Henry Robb seem to generate, stories come in all the time that such and such a ship has been found rusting away, usually half sunk, and we now have some information on the Dredger GALLIONS REACH Ship No 229 which it seems is resting half sunk against a wharf in Greece, after being salvaged from her sinking in the River Tees in 1971, she must have been sold on to Greek owners for use around the coast as intended. Our thanks go to Pam for finding her and letting us know, along with supplying some photographs as well.


No doubt as in the life of most ships she became too expensive to upkeep and now she awaits her inevitable fate at the hands of the breakers, perhaps to be turned into razor blades or some other commodity, better this than the way she is now rusting away in the sun.

So along with the dredger WANGANUI it now looks like both ships await the burning torches of the ship breakers.

There are many more ships out there in the 4 corners of the world that we have still to track down and as long as there are people out there interested in ships then we shall find out what happened to most of them, and the story will be updated on the Leith Shipyards website as we go along.

PORT WAIKATO – Update



The PORT WAIKATO at anchor in the Chatham Islands circa 1949

Ship No 113
This is the ship that was built twice and we now have some great stories from Trevor Gibson, who sailed on her for a couple of years after the end of World War II.


Amazing to see how some things have changed in that time.

The coaster PORT WAIKATO was the vessel tasked with keeping the small Islands off New Zealands coast supplied with all of lifes little essentials and she was a means of the Islanders getting there livestock to market.



Loading sheep, can you imagine the outcry today.