Pine Harbour ferry comes FULL CIRCLE
Every time one of the four ferries in the Pine Harbour fleet rounds the cliffs of Musick Point they hark back to the brave and gifted aviator Captain Edwin Musick, who brought New Zealand closer to the rest of the world.
American Samoa to Auckland Harbour. Musick Point, the tip of a peninsula that juts into the Hauraki Gulf, was his point of contact with New Zealand by high-frequency radio at the broadcasting station, which is still there. Pan Am's aircraft were always identified as Clippers,
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through their name and call sign, until the demise of the airline in 1991. Pine Harbour's catamaran ferries, which run between the small coastal township of Beachlands and downtown Auckland, are also all named Clipper to acknowledge Musick's deeds. "As the ferries are a wing-supported vessel, we are not too far removed from the essence of the original flying boats," says the director, Alan Drinkrow. Clipper IV, the first of the company's new 99-passenger fast ferries to enter into service, sets an example of how a network of small, low-wash fast ferries can link our coastal suburbs with downtown.
n 1935, Pan American Airways inaugurated the first international commercial air service to New Zealand when a Sikorsky S 42 flying boat, with Musick at the controls, flew from Pago Pago in
The service has operated several times a day from the 570-berth Pine Harbour Marina since 2003, five years after the marina opened. It has developed into a very fashionable marine precinct with an adjacent fast- growing middle-class residential community, and the city is only 35 minutes away on the ferry. Pine Harbour makes a minimum of 14 return trips per weekday, plus weekend trips to Waiheke Island and other charter work.
When the service first started, the original Clipper I
carried a modest 90 passengers a day. Since then the company has experienced exponential growth of 20 percent a year and currently carries approximately 156,000 passengers to Auckland each year. During the Rugby World Cup series they transported a further 3800 on additional sailings provided for the event.
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NZ WO BOORKBOAT REVIIEW 2012 WORKBOA VIEI W2012
NZ WORKBOWORKB AT REV E W 2012
REVIEW 2012
Mike Roycroft
