The steam tug
LYTTELTON
The Tug Lyttelton Preservation Society is a
non-profit organisation whose aims are to
restore and maintain the vintage steam tug
Lyttelton in working order, to promote public
interest in the vessel, and to make it possible
for passengers to travel on it by means of
public cruises and chartered voyages around
the Banks Peninsula area. They also provided
much of the material used in the article.
B
uilt in 1906, the tug Lyttelton is the second oldest of our steam ships still operating today in
full Maritime NZ SSM passenger survey. One
hundred years ago British yards were recognised
as international centres of shipbuilding excellence, so in
December 1906 the then Lyttelton Harbour Board placed
an order with the Fergusson Brothers of Newark Shipyard
in Port Glasgow, for the construction of a twin-screw tug
named Canterbury.
The tug sailed from the Clyde for her new home port
on the June 2, 1907, making the journey of over 12,000
miles under her own steam without electricity, which was
not installed for a number of years. The coal-fired tug was
in the hands of a delivery crew of 19 and called for bunkers
10
NZ WORKBOAT REVIEW 2013
Inside the wheelhouse
it's all polished brass
at Algiers, Port Said, Aden, Colombo, Fremantle and
Melbourne en route, arriving at Lyttelton on September 10.
However, towards the end of 1911 the Lyttelton Harbour
Board had taken delivery of a new dredger and named it
Canterbury, and in those circumstances the tug's name had
to be changed, so it was renamed Lyttelton.
By the 1930's the role for the Lyttelton was changing
and had taken on a different character. Much larger vessels
were now sailing the seas than when the little tug was built,
consequently, a larger tug was considered a necessity for
the port of Lyttelton. In 1938 the Harbour Board placed
an order for a new tug with Lobnitz & Co. of Renfrew
on the Clyde. She was named Lyttelton II and arrived
in port in March 1939. If war had not broken out the
