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they were on their way south down to Whitianga with the empty barge Keri in tow. They had passed Cape Colville and were heading toward Great Mercury Island when all of a sudden the Vivian started to run very rough and then stopped. Harry spent about an hour trying to diagnose what went wrong and in the end he decided to spend the time attempting to make the tug and tow safe. They launched the logging dinghy with its 4hp Penta outboard, loaded it with 15 fathoms (27.5m) of chain and ordered his crew to set off and tow them to the nearest safe haven, Kennedy Bay. Eventually they made it and anchored both vessels. As they did not have any form of communication they went ashore to use a telephone to call Lance. He arrived many hours later with Jack Ryan, who worked for Allely Bros. Jack found the coupling to the fuel pump had not been tightened home. He retimed the engine, started it up and it ran like a clock again. They continued on to Whitianga, loaded the barge with sinker logs and towed it back to Auckland behind a raft of kauri logs. The Julians had an annual contract with New Zealand Railways to deliver 50,000 tons of bagged fertiliser from Auckland to Paeroa on the Hauraki Plains. For this they used two tugs, the Odin towing the 120ft wooden lighter the Moa and the Mahoe towing the barge Stanley, skippered by Brian "Tojo" Logan. If all went well, each boat would do three round trips per week. One night Harry was southeast of Orere Point and about mid- way across the Firth of Thames when a huge clatter came from the engineroom. Before he could get down to the engine to shut it down there was a giant crashing noise and the Vivian came to an instant stop. The number two piston had collapsed when the big end had come off the crankshaft and the remaining part of the connecting rod had gone through the crankcase. This was major! The next thing to do was to anchor the barge and trail the Odin from its stern. Harry launched the 10ft clinker dinghy, left the crew on board the crippled vessel and rowed toward Thames. He landed on the beach in the early morning after a nine-mile row at Te Puru Bay, north of Thames township, and phoned Lance for help. By that time the local store had opened so he topped himself up with a bar of chocolate and a bottle of lemonade. He felt refreshed and set off back to the Odin and the Moa. About half way back the wind came up from the southwest and the final part of the voyage was sheer hell before he made it back. Hours later, the skipper of the Mahoe, Chris Walker, turned up with a tow. Harry swapped positions with Chris and continued up to Paeroa with the tow. At Lance's request, Tojo then turned up with the Te Kopuru and towed the Odin back to Auckland. She was slipped and within seven days was back in the water with a new 165hp Detroit 6/71 diesel. The fertiliser trade was eventually phased out as the roads improved, and the Odin did trips north and returned with glass sand from Parengarenga. Later on she underwent a major rebuild at Lidgards and had a new, higher deckhouse fitted, better bulwarks built and new fuel tanks installed. The Odin was involved in several salvage jobs as far south as the Bay of Plenty. Assistance was rendered to the Northern Steam Ship Company's motor coaster Tuhoe one night when she joined the Odin and the barge Stanley sheltering in the lee of Whale Island. The Tuhoe had somehow swung around, grounded beam-on and damaged her port propeller shaft, a bracket and a section of her port bilge. The Stanley was anchored under difficult conditions in strong winds in a restricted seaway. The Odin towed the Tuhoe off before she became a total loss. The other notable salvage was when the fairly new Barbara W, owned at that time by Alf Walling, was towing his 300-ton Australian hardwood-built barge. It was loaded with sand and hit the rocks while exiting the treacherous Whakatane bar. By this time a very fresh westerly had came up and within a few hours it began developing into a gale. Due to this grounding, the barge started to leak badly and the only option was to run out to the nearby Raurimu Islands, where she eventually sank in about 20 fathoms of water. Alf had asked Lance and Harry if they could come down and salvage it. They set the Stanley up with shear legs and lifting gear hired from the Auckland Harbour Board. Bill Keane, the AHB's chief diver at the time, came down to supervise the underwater work and the Odin towed all this down to the scene. The job took almost three weeks before the barge was back at the nearest safe port. In 1951 the Odin had engine problems off Kennedy Bay while towing the Moa. By this time the Julians had just purchased the Barbara W from Walling. They took the Odin and the Moa under tow with the intention of taking her back to Auckland, but at about 1900 the towline parted in a nor'easterly gale. Before they could do anything, first the Moa and then the Odin hit the coast about a mile from Port Charles. Darkness fell and nothing could be done. The Barbara W steamed to Mercury Cove for shelter for the night. In the morning they returned to find the Moa with a broken back and the Odin had disappeared. The Julians had really grown their business over the previous 11 years since they had owned the Odin, and she had done an incomprehensible amount of work during this time. The Odin at sea PHONE 09 419 1954 September/October 2011 Professional Skipper 29 VIP.S82