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The Carisbrooke Castle.

When the Carisbrooke Castle, a ship of 1415 tons, commanded by Captain Freebody, arrived in Auckland on September 8, 1875, after a passage of 92 days, from Belfast, with the first of the Katikati settlers on board, she was pronounced by one of the newspapers "the most completely fitted and best conditioned immigrant ship it has ever been our lot to see." The ship brought out 363 people selected for settlements in the Bay of Plenty, under the supervision of Vesey Stewart, a name well known in connection with the pioneering days in that part of the Province. The party included a large number of people from the North of Ireland, most of them being Orangemen. A public welcome in the Choral Hall was given to the newcomers, and they were afterwards taken down to Tauranga by the Northern Company's steamer Rowena.

She was a very handsome ship, this Carisbrooke Castle, and the sight she made as she sailed into the Waitemata Harbour before a north-east wind is recorded in the newspapers of the day in very florid language. Liverpool was left on June 3, and then the ship sailed over to Belfast to pick up her passengers. The Irish port was left on June 8, and the passage to New Zealand was one unbroken spell of fine weather. When running down her easting on the parallel of 45 degrees South the ship made some capital runs. On July 23 she logged 305 miles, and other good runs recorded were 280 miles, 296, 252, 259, and another 280. The only event out of the common during the passage happened on June 24, when at nine p.m. the ship passed through "a patch of snow-white water, about one mile in extent, and with a very clearly defined and distinct margin."

When the Carisbrooke Castle visited Auckland she was a seven-year-old ship. She was built at Glasgow by Barclay and Curle, and was owned by Donald Currie, of London—a name not without renown in shipping circles. In 1874 this fine ship visited Lyttelton, where she arrived on September 2, after a passage of 93 days. Captain Freebody commanded on both voyages to New Zealand.