SS Maori (1868)

SS Maori was a Union Company, schooner-rigged steamer,^[1] able to carry 20 saloon passengers, 12 steerage and 211 tons of cargo, with a 60 hp (45 kW), 2-cylinder (27, 20 in.) compound engine, driving a screw. On 15 January 1869 she arrived under sail at Lyttelton for Turnbull, Smith & Co.^[2] Later in the year she was bought by the Harbour Steam Company to run between Lyttelton and Dunedin.^[3]

She was among the first ships in the Union Steamship fleet when Harbour Steam Co merged into that company.^[4] In March 1884 she was sold to Martin Kennedy.^[5] His Brunner Coal Co used her as a collier from Greymouth,^[6] until August 1888, when Brunner merged with Union and she rejoined the fleet.^[7]

In November 1902 she had been laid up at Port Chalmers for 18 months when sold to Captain E. F. Allen, for use in Samoa,^[8] though her registration passed to George Dunnett, Auckland and by 1904 to Henderson & Macfarlane, Auckland.^[1] A 1905 report confirmed she already belonged to Captain Allen,^[9] but it wasn't until 1907 that she officially transferred to his Samoa Shipping & Trading Co Ltd, Auckland, when Captain Orkney had 16 shares, with 48 held by shipbuilders.^[1] In 1908 Samoa Shipping decided to replace her with a larger ship.^[10] In 1913 she seems to have been ordered out of Apia harbour, due to her dilapidated state, and was either run onto a nearby reef,^[11] which may have been in Saluafata Harbour, near Falefa and Eva, or an alternative source says she sank at her moorings there and US aircraft bombed her in 1942, thinking she was a Japanese submarine.^[1]