It's not very often, anywhere in the world, that shipping operations at a port are discontinued. In New Zealand, Oamaru, in 1974, and Raglan, seven years later, have been the most recent examples. That was until mid-June, 2016, and the closure of what was once both the largest coastal port in New Zealand and, between 1844 and 1863, this country's major port, given it was home to the Royal New Zealand Naval Base at the time. When Holcim's cement carriers, "Milburn Carrier II" and "Westport", departed the Port of Onehunga and respectively sailed down the Manukau Harbour for the final time, they brought the curtain down on approximately 180 years of freight operations on the world's eighth largest harbour. Ports of Auckland's decision to close Onehunga to shipping - the port, for many years second only to Tauranga as New Zealand's biggest fishing port, will continue to be a safe haven to the trawlers of Sanford, Moana Pacific et al in good weather and ill - was flagged in 2013. It followed Holcim's decision to import cement from Asia, rather than continuing to produce it at its aging Cape Foulwind plant, an initiative which comes at the cost of around 120 jobs. Another consequence of this decision saw two new deep-water-based distribution points chosen, and the ports of Auckland and Timaru now boast dome-shaped minion-like silos, each capable of housing 30,000 tonnes of Holcim's finest for distribution around the countryside. The sizable bulk carriers in which cement will now arrive on these shores ruled out Onehunga as a distribution point due to the shallow draft nature of the Manukau Harbour, a 420 square kilometre mass of water at full tide which hides tidal sandbanks aplenty, so many that there are just four navigable channels through the country's second largest harbour, only one of which leads to Onehunga Wharf. Holcim, previously known as Milburn NZ, has been the foremost customer at the wharf over the past fifty-six years, cementing (sorry! :) their position by erecting, in 1963-4, the silos with which anyone who has crossed Mangere Bridge en route to or from Auckland Airport will be familiar, silos labelled the city's best icon in a NZ Herald story last December entitled "The Twenty Best Things of Auckland Life". Another icon, of both the port and the NZ shipping industry as a whole, is the most frequent visitor to Onehunga in its entire history. "Westport" is now in her 41st year of service on the New Zealand coast, itself a remarkable milestone in an era when ships generally tend to have an unbreakable appointment with the breakers' yard once they creep the wrong side of thirty. 'La Grande Dame' of the local shipping scene has continually cocked a snook at Old Father Time, however, and defiantly clocked up her 1100th - count them! - visit to Onehunga on May 9, a staggering tally in anyone's language. She's even outlasted her Hamburg-based builders, JJ Sietas Schiffswerft, who were declared insolvent in 2012! The afore-mentioned "MC2" has made over 940 visits to Onehunga since she commenced service in mid-1988, while the original "Milburn Carrier" and the "Guardian Carrier" also feature among the top ten most frequent

visitors to the port since July 1961, prior to which published records of shipping movements can most kindly be described as inconsistent. The prominence of Pacifica Shipping's "Spirit Of Resolution", "Spirit Of Vision" and "Spirit Of Progress" in said top ten reflects the significance of that company's twenty years of service to Onehunga, which has as its legacy the $700,000 loading ramp their initial roll-on roll-off service required to use the port. Other great servants of the coastal trade over the years which were regular visitors at Onehunga include the Anchor Shipping quartet "Mamaku", "Puriri", "Titoki" and "Totara", the Holm Shipping trio "Holmwood", "Holmburn" and "Holmdale", and the Northern Steamship Company's "Hotunui" and "Awanui", whose bipod masts were unmistakable. Ships from these three companies were particularly prominent users of Onehunga during the port's hey-day, in the mid-1960s - the days before containerisation changed the way cargo was handled the world over. Indeed, in both 1966 and 1967, a record 284 separate visits to the port took place, with a record eight vessels alongside on two separate occasions in the former year, just three years after Onehunga had been described as "perhaps the most successful secondary port in New Zealand". By the mid-1960s, services from Onehunga to and from the Pacific Islands had commenced, with "Holmburn" pioneering the route north. In time, NZ Shipping Corporation and Warner Pacific Line vessels would become a regular sight at the port. But it was Reef Shipping, most notably via their yellow-hulled ships, which would serve Onehunga well over nigh on twenty years, the one most sighted being "Fijian", which also visited as "Onehunga" and "Cotswold Prince" over time. That ship was a regular caller throughout a decade which saw the trans-Tasman trade serviced via the Tasman Express Line duo "Auckland Express" and "Canterbury Express" heading to Australia from Onehunga on over 180 occasions between 1985 and 1991. In the second half of that year, TEL opted to acquire bigger tonnage and headed round t'other side of town as a result. Within a year, international trade out of Onehunga had all but ground to a halt, and the port had returned to what it was in its prime - a port which served the coastal trade extremely well, albeit now with far fewer ships to do so than were in evidence forty-odd years ago. The first decade of the 21st Century was noteworthy as much for the vastly reduced number of ships visiting the port as for the significant incidents which occurred while they were in the harbour. "Westport" kicked things off in November 2002, a gear failure seeing her go stern-first into the old Mangere Bridge, for so long the bane of ships trying to berth at the wharf. There would be another case of irresistible force meets immovable object three years later, when "Spirit Of Resolution" came off second-best in a battle with said bridge. But that was small beer compared to what befell "SOR" in 2010, seven years after the exact same thing had occurred to "Spirit Of Enterprise".

The Manukau Bar is not to be taken lightly by any mariner at any time. It was the scene of this country's worst maritime disaster in 1863, when 189 of her 259-strong complement were lost as "HMS Orpheus" ran aground on the middle bank and fell victim to the relentless waves. Many more lives and a fair few small vessels have been casualties in the vicinity of the Manukau Heads over the years, and while such incidents have been few and far between in recent times, as "SOE" and "SOR" discovered when both lost their rudders when crossing the Bar, she still packs a vicious bite when the mood takes her. These incidents were undoubtedly factors in Pacifica's decision to introduce larger tonnage onto the coastal trade in 2012, and when Holcim made their move along like lines six months later, the die was cast with regard to the future of the Port of Onehunga. And so we come to the question - why, given there aren't too many cities in the world boasting two fully operational ports, is the City of Sails losing one of its unique features? Ultimately, Onehunga's demise where freight operations is concerned is a result of three things - dredging, readies and red tape! The need to dredge the port to keep it open has been a constant issue for Ports of Auckland and their predecessors for years - records of Manukau Harbour dredging date back to 1925! With the building of the eastern side of the Mangere Bridge in 2010 - the western side was eventually completed in 1983 after lengthy industrial disputes, the amount of dredging required at Onehunga has only increased - one need only look at the fishing basin at low tide, where you'll see any trawlers berthed there quite literally stuck in the mud! So the need to dredge is paramount. But where to dump the mud? Elsewhere in the harbour? Via land disposal? You can sense the environmentalists bristling at the mere thought of either of those options, given the possibility - no matter how minimal - of contaminants contained in the silt. Then there's the sheer cost of the exercise, not to mention having to navigate a way through the veritable minefield of bureaucratic red tape by which progress in this day and age is all too often stifled, if not stalled entirely. With the two clients which have used the port most over the past twenty-five years having revised their operational requirements, it's simply no longer economically viable for Ports of Auckland to dredge Onehunga when its usage by ships will be infrequent at best. Instead, they are currently negotiating the sale of the port with Panuku Development Auckland, with talk of a Wynyard Quarter-style development planned for what, for the best part of two centuries, has been a hugely significant port in the history of New Zealand shipping. While future generations will come to know Onehunga for its coffee and kai, in between its iconic cement silos and visiting fishing vessels, the history of the port will forever live on in the form of a tribute website celebrating shipping at the Port of Onehunga - www.ultimatenzsoccer.com/Onehunga, contributions to which are welcome.