The earliest postage stamp to show one of the Shaw Savill & Albion Line’s vessels was issued by the Republic of Hawaii in 1894, one of its last stamp issues before becoming one of the United States of America. The first Arawa is shown, a vessel which made a name as a record breaker. She appears on the 12 cents, stamp and is probably the steamer shown at Honolulu on the envelope and postcard stamps of the same period. The Arawa was built in 1884 by Denny, of Dumbarton. Her length was 439 feet, gross tonnage 5,044. Her record run to New Zealand was 34 days. 17 hours, 23 mins. On her second voyage homeward in 1885 she did the passage in 34 days, 23 hours to Plymouth, also a record. Her run outwards was via the Cape of Good Hope, homeward round Cape Horn, calling at Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo.
In 1893 the Arawa was chartered by Huddert's, of New Zealand, for a round voyage from Wellington to San Francisco and she created a record that stood for many years. Two years later she was chartered to the Cia Trasatlantica and left the Thames for Cadiz on August 22, 1895. She was renamed Colon and served as a Spanish Government troopship during the trouble in Cuba, but was returned to Shaw Savill's before the Spanish-American war broke out in 1898.
About 1900 she was sold to Elder Dempster's for their Dominion Line service, was transferred to the Beaver Line and renamed Lake Megantic. The P.S.N.C. chartered her in 1901 and at the expiry of the charter she ran for "E.D.s" on their Imperial Direct West Indian mail service between Avonmouth and the West Indies. While on that service in 1905 her name was changed to Port Henderson. Considerable alterations were made to her, yards were removed and her mainmast was taken out.
When the service was abandoned in favour of the Elder & Fyffe Line the ship was transferred to the British & African Steam Navigation Company, and in 1912 was sold for £20,000 to M. E. Lanz, of Italy. She then became the Anapo. In 1913 she was sold to the Soc. Maritima Italiana, of Genoa, for £22,500 and was renamed Porto Said. It proved to be her last name. On December 10, 1915, she was torpedoed in the Mediterranean by the German submarine U39.
The original name Arawa comes from a Maori canoe of that name, one of the eight canoes which carried the Maoris from Malaya to New Zealand about 1350. This canoe is shown on two New Zealand stamps, the halfpenny value of 1906 and the halfpenny stamp of 1940. It was a typical Polynesian double-canoe, about 100 feet long, and able to carry 100 persons. On the occasion of the 1936 Empire Chamber of Commerce Conference at Wellington a set of four stamps was issued to commemorate the event.
Hawaii SG81, New Zealand SG1546. Sea Brezes 11/47