Many of us will remember with affection the conventional vessels operated by British companies involved in the New Zealand trade.
They became history in the 1970s when container ships pushed them aside.
They were displaced by much larger vessels, mostly by the first- and second-generation ships operated by ACT(A) and OCL.
Both consortiums were established by major British liner interests involved in the Australian and New Zealand trades.
Their services, which commenced in 1969, initially to Australia, were later extended to this country.
Both generations of the ACT and OCL (later P&OCL) ships started calling here in 1977.
However, the first British container ship to call here, in February 1977, was Aotea, employed in the Crusader Swire Container Service to Japan alongside the Japanese-owned Godwit.
The demise of the conventional cargo liner in United Kingdom trade gained momentum a few years earlier.
While most went for scrap, others that were among the last of their kind to be built ended their days in the 1980s.
In 1977, only 10 of the British cargo liners built between 1957 and 1966 for service with the Blue Star, Port and Shaw, Savill Lines, plus the combined New Zealand Shipping/Federal Steam Navigation fleets, were seen here.
The last of this type of vessel to berth here, at Dunedin on January 19, 1978, was the 10,619gt Rockhampton Star.
It had been delivered from the Cammell Laird yard, Birkenhead, in January 1958.
Several other companies whose cargo ships and names were once familiar to this port also spring to mind.
The Bank Line was last represented here by the 7355gt, 1965-built Ernebank in July 1977.
Their ships had a long association with the phosphate trade and also a general cargo service from US Gulf ports.
Then there was the British India Line engaged in the India-Southeast Asia service.
Their ships' names disappeared from here in 1975.
And Ellerman Lines, whose local links with the MANZ (Montreal-Australia-New Zealand) Line, and their "City of" ships, came to an end here in December 1970.
Their colours returned in 1985 with visits by City of Durban.
The largest container ship to call here, the 53,790gt, later amended to 52,055gt, was also seen here as Portland Bay, and with Isle of Man registry as ACT 8 and Pegasus Bay.
A major change in October 1991 saw the ACT fleet split up between P&OCL and Blue Star.
While ACT's 1, 2 and 7 became the Discovery Bay, Moreton Bayand Palliser Bay.
ACT's 3-6 became America Star, Melbourne Star, Sydney Starand Queensland Star on the Bahamian register.
This quartet returned to London registry in 2000.
By 2003, all first- and second-generation British flag ships had ended their days at the hands of Chinese or Indian ship-breakers.
The end for seven of them was hastened with the introduction in 2002 of the ten P&O Nedlloyd/Contships 4100s on the eastbound, round-the-world service.
Unlike their seven foreign-flag running mates, Contship Aurora, Contship Australia and Contship Borealis were registered at London.
The prefix was later changed to CP.
Then, when P&ONL was taken over by Maersk, they were given Maersk names.
Today, they are trading with Hapag-Lloyd names under the German flag.
So could this trio be the last cargo ships built to service the New Zealand trade under the British flag? As for London, it was the port of registry common to thousands of British ships for well over a century.
In future, it might be only the odd London-registered cruise ship we see here.
