The mission to turn century-old crane into ‘living’ waterfront attraction
Wednesday, 17 June 2026
The cable car, Wellington botanic gardens, Zealandia … the Hikitia?
A group of passionate Wellingtonians are on a mission to transform the world’s only working floating crane into a major tourist attraction rivalling some of the city’s most established landmarks.
Come a weekend, you'll find them crawling around its bilges, scraping rust, checking its hull, painting …They’re not young and none are paid but they're absolutely convinced the unique vessel is worth saving.
Yes, says Nigel Fyfe, one of thevolunteers looking to convert “that rusty old thing on the waterfront” into a celebrated Wellington asset. It will take some pretty heavy lifting but there is no Plan B: She is either brought back to life or left as is to become a hazard and an environmental risk.
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And because of her age she's a protected artifact — she can't be sent offshore or cheaply scrapped. Decommissioning the crane would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and erase a piece of maritime history.
Owned by Wellington’s Maritime Heritage Trust the Hikitia was built in Scotland for the Wellington Harbour Board. The only vessel of her class left in the world and believed to be the world’s oldest working example of a floating steam crane, she celebrates her centenary this year.
The restoration plan, Project 27, is ambitious, but necessary to ensure the vessel’s existing capabilities, historical importance and cultural impact are all conserved into its second century, Fyfe says.
But while volunteers already contribute more than 6000 hours of labour every year, the scale of the proposed restoration far exceeds what they alone can achieve.
“I think back to nine years ago. There were 15 or 20 of us on board every Saturday. Now we might get seven to 10 … but the actual stalwarts of the Hikitia are about five people. It’s not sustainable.”
Requirements include having the vessel towed to Lyttleton and drydocked while major work to fix the hull is undertaken. Repairs to the crane and wider ship substructure will follow, along with an internal reconfiguration.
A small, custom-built visitor centre wharfside, providing a staging area for ticket sales, merchandise and exhibits, is also on the cards.
All of that will, of course, take money ‒ an estimated $3.4 million in total. To that end the trust is launching a major fundraising campaign to help cover costs. They’ve also put the call out for more volunteers.
“Towing is a major expense item, dry docking fees are a major expense item,” says Fyfe. “Each steel plate that needs to be replaced - and we need to replace 80 - has been budgeted at $10,000, so that’s $800,000. We need to put on eight layers of marine antifouling paint on a ship with 1000 ²m … these are big ticket items.
“We want to reconfigure her interior, so there’s a good, smart, attractive walkway through to see the old captain’s quarters, the old crew quarters, to go above the engine room and the boiler room to look down into that …
“Under the ‘new world’, she’ll have a manager, she’ll have a team of volunteers who are not people who are chipping rust, but who are rather hosts to escort people around, and a small crew who maintain the engines, who run the machinery.
“She will be a display piece, and she will be a visitor attraction ‒ we think she can be a pretty key visitor attraction.”
Enthusiasm is already building, he says. A deposit for a berthing slot in Lyttleton booked for June next year has been waived, while the country’s biggest crane firm, Christchurch’s Smith’s, has offered to remove, repair and reinstate the jib, a job worth at least $100,000, pro bono.
As well the group is in discussions with a tug operator for the expected 36-hour tow from Wellington to Lyttleton and the Wellington Harbourmaster team has provided technical advice and support.
“We know we have a mountain to climb but the vision is that she’s no longer something that people might complain about, but that she’s regarded as a Wellington asset,” Fyfe said.
He notes a similar ‒“though not as good” ship ‒ based in Trieste in Italy is cherished as a city mascot. “There are little models and postcards of her in the tourist shops. That’s what this could be like.
“We just want to be able to say to doubters, in a couple of years’ time, she’s not going to be that thing that you might be a bit dismissive of … we’re going to keep her fully working, and the crane will be going up and down, and the machinery will be rumbling away, and she’ll get a lot more visitors than she does now, and she’ll look terrific.
“She’ll have a firm place on the Wellington waterfront.”
The Hikitia’s main working role involved lifting heavy cargo on and off ships, but she was also involved in wharf construction projects and salvage work ‒ including on the wreck of the interisland ferry Wahine ‒ acted as a breakwater and been a platform for firework displays.
There have been two fatal incidents linked to the historic steam-powered crane. Safety features include a number of onboard CCTV cameras, a lockable fixture to the ladder rungs and “no authorised entry signs” signs placed around the ship
For more info: http://project27.co.nz/