The barque Rothesay Bay leaving Auckland (circa 1900).
Water colour (730 x 520)mm

A similar arrangement and view to the oil painting of the Clan Macleod leaving Auckland.  The tower on the right is on the eastern outermost “T” of Queen’s Wharf and beyond is the Harbour Board Building with the time ball, which was dropped each noon so that ships could set their chronometers. Left from the Harbour Board is Gladstone’s Coffee House which was on the western corner of Queen and Quay St.

The large building centre left was the Northern Roller Flour Mills on Quay St. The nearer wharf on the left was the Railway Wharf. The configuration of all these wharves has completely changed.

The mullet boat Andrew is heading in to unload fish either at the foot of Queen Street or around to the wharves at the eastern end of the inner harbour.

The Rothesay Bay…extract from Sails Beneath the Southern Cross by P.A.Eady. (Reed 1954).

The iron barque Rothesay Bay ex-Active exRothesay Bay, 762 tons, was one of the well-known sea writer Allan Villiers’ old ships. She was built at Dumbarton in 1877, and hulked at Auckland in 1921. She was finally broken up for scrap iron on the beach in front of the Maori village of Orakei in Auckland Harbour.

For further reading about the ship can be found in Allan Villiers Set of the Sails (Hodder and Stoughton, 1949).  Villiers sailed in her after World War I.  At this time she was painted wartime grey. I have taken licence to show her painted green as I have been unable to track down her colours prior to the war except that she appears on photos to be a colour lighter than black.

This painting is framed and available in Auckland for $3000NZ. (shipping not included)