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Ratanui
 Sourced from Northern Steam Ship Company archives, NZ Maritime Museum (1987.369.7)
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Built by Davie Shipbuilding & Repairing Co Ltd in Lauzon, Quebec, for the Canadian government, she was a product of the Canadian wartime shipbuilding programme, and initially operated as "Ottawa Mayspring" before becoming "Mayspring"upon being purchased by General Timber Products of Quebec.
Two years later, she was sold to Copenhagen owners Arrenak I/S and managed by S.A. Thomasen, before being acquired by the Northern Steamship Company in 1952 and named "Ratanui".
Her delivery voyage from Antwerp was, in the words of Captain C.P. Keane - a future Officer-in-Charge at Onehunga, "extremely rough". She left Europe in a heavy fog carrying a cargo of fencing wire, before encountering the stiffest North Atlantic gales in recent times, damaging her steering gear.
She pulled into Las Palmas in the Canary Islands for repairs before resuming her passage through the Panama Canal prior to following the route made famous by the raft "Kon-Tiki", which allowed her to make forty more miles progress towards Auckland than would have been the case by alternative routes.
She traded out of Onehunga to Lyttelton, Timaru and Dunedin, stopping in at Oamaru on the northbound voyage to load hydrated lime for Tauranga. She also made occasional calls at Raglan and New Plymouth in 1956, before being sold to Burns Philp (South Sea) Co in Suva, Fiji later that year.
She traded throughout the Pacific Islands for thirteen years before being chartered for oil research work in the Bass Strait area in 1969. While undertaking this work, she grounded on 30 June that year and began taking water aft, which increased to the extent that her engine room flooded, despite having been towed clear.
Pumps kept the water at bay, and she was towed to Melbourne for inspection. The owners decided to cut their losses and she was sold to interests in Madang in 1970. A year later, she was converted into a barge.
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