The Last Cruise of the Reliance

Arriving from Melbourne on the 11th of April, 1938, with 140 American and 60 German passengers and 374 crew, the Hamburg-Amerika Lines' 19,618 ton cruise ship Reliance of 1914 is seen here berthed at Auckland's Freemans Bay Oil Wharf.

Superseded in the Hamburg - Southampton - Cherbourg - New York service by such crack German liners as the Bremen and the Europa, like many a grand old lady of the sea, Reliance was by then circumnavigating the globe on a regular basis.  However, the war between Japan and China at that time had precluded the usual East Asian ports-of-call for luxury cruise ships and Reliance found herself joining the 18,017 ton Mariposa and the 42,348 ton Empress of Britain at the city's overly crowded wharves.

After a three night stay at her 25th port of call since leaving New York on New Years Day, the 590 foot (180.4 metres) Reliance cleared port for Wellington, before returning to New York six weeks later via Suva, Apia, Honolulu, San Francisco, Los Angeles, the Panama Canal and Havana.

Less than four months after leaving Auckland Reliance met her end at Hamburg on the morning of the 7th of August, the day scheduled for her afternoon departure on another world cruise.  A suspicious fire broke out at 6 a.m in a store of ballroom decorations.  Although brought under control within five hours, the midships section of the passenger accommodation was destroyed  ( https://www.meherbabatravels.com/ship-travels/reliance/ ).  The vessel was laid up and shortly after declared a total loss.  Seventeen months later Reliance was sold to the Krupp Werke and was broken up at Bremerhaven in 1941.

As to the other cruise ships in the historic photo, the largest ship ever to visit New Zealand up to that time: the Empress of Britain (1931-1940), was sunk by the Germans as the hulk of the Reliance awaited her final demise.  However, the much loved Mariposa  (1931-1974) sailed on for another thirty-six years, the latter part cruising the Caribbean as the Homeric.  In 1973, a major fire destroyed much of her galley and restaurant and she was scrapped in Taiwan.  During the breaking process, her sister ship, the Chandris Lines' Ellinis (ex-Lurline 1932-1987), suffered major engine damage on a cruise to Japan; Chandris was able to purchase one of the Mariposa's engines from the ship breakers.

The above image is but a detail from a much larger photograph in the digitalnz.org collection, where it is mis-dated to 1934 and merely annotated as "View of Freeman's Bay and the Ports of Auckland main wharves with docked ships, showing Mechanic's Bay and Auckland city central business district"  https://www.digitalnz.org/records/30657644/view-of-freemans-bay-and-the-ports-of-auckland-main-wharves-with-docked-shi