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Story: Shipbuilding

Riveting a minesweeper

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Riveting a minesweeper

Steel minesweeping trawlers represented the peak of New Zealand’s wartime shipbuilding. They were able to sweep mines, hunt submarines and escort convoys, and were mostly built at Port Chalmers, the country’s centre of steel shipbuilding. Fletcher Construction took over the Port Chalmers shipyard Stevenson & Cook in 1942, and rapidly established an entirely new yard at Boiler Point to build the sweepers.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library, John Dobrée Pascoe Collection (PAColl-0783)

Reference: PAColl-5926-42

by John Dobrée Pascoe

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Gavin McLean, Shipbuilding – The iron and steel era, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/5504/riveting-a-minesweeper (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Gavin McLean, published 2 March 2009, updated 1 July 2015.