Janie Seddon

This is all that is left of the ‘Janie Seddon’

The Janie Seddon was built in Paisley, Scotland in 1901 for the New Zealand Government to be used as a submarine mining vessel.  The Premier, Rt Hon Richard Seddon, named her after his niece, although the original name was supposed to be Janie Spotswood.

The Janie Seddon was commissioned as an examination vessel in Wellington Harbour in both World Wars.  She fired the first shots of World War II for the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy over the bow of a vessel entering the harbour.  In 1946 she was purchased by Ivan Talley for the Motueka Trawling Co Ltd. and adapted to trawl fishing. This proved to be uneconomic as vessels of this size were not permitted to fish within three miles of the coast, so she was unable to fish in Tasman Bay which was rich in snapper.  As her small coal capacity only allowed her to spend five days at sea at a time she often came into Port with her fish holds half empty.  She was laid up at the Motueka Wharf in 1950 then beached near the ‘Old Wharf’ in 1955, and broken up for scrap.  Her hull remains lying in the sand, a sad reminder of a once proud ship.