Port of Tauranga

The Maori waka Takitimu, one of the great Maori migration canoes, is said to have entered the harbour ca. 1290 in its voyage from the Maori traditional homeland of Hawaiki.

Lieutenant James Cook in the vessel HMS Endeavour passed close to the harbour in November 1769 on his voyage of exploration of New Zealand, but did not enter it.

The missionary schooner Herald was probably the first European vessel to enter the harbour, in 1828.

Subsequently, in 1853 Captain Drury in HMS Pandora surveyed and charted the coast and harbour as part of a broader maritime survey of New Zealand.

The first wharf was constructed in the 1860s, before which shipping operations took place from the beach. Passenger steamer services were operated from the 1870s, being discontinued in 1929 following the construction of a rail link to Hamilton in 1928.

In September 1873, the Port of Tauranga was officially established by order of the Governor-General of New Zealand, Sir James Fergusson. The Lady Jocelyn of 2,138 tonnes was the first large sailing vessel recorded as entering the harbour, in 1882.Various schemes were proposed for dredging and other improvements to navigation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but little was done.

A Tauranga Harbour Board was constituted to administer the affairs of the harbour in 1912, first meeting in 1913.

In 1927 the Railway Wharf was completed and used almost exclusively for coastal shipping until the visit of the James Cook in 1948 to load timber for Australia. Timber subsequently became and remains a mainstay of cargoes out of the port.

Construction of the Mount Maunganui wharf started in 1953 and the first ship, the MV Korowai berthed at the new wharf on 5 December 1954.

In 1960 the port's first tug, the Mount Maunganui was commissioned. In 1967, the port handled its first shipping container. In 1972 the Port Caroline, then the world's largest conventional refrigerated cargo liner, visited the port for the first time.

The opening of the Kaimai rail tunnel by Sir Rob Muldoon in 1978 substantially reduced travelling times between the port and the rest of New Zealand.

In 1988, as a consequence of Government port reform, the Bay of Plenty Harbour Board established Port of Tauranga Limited as its operating vehicle. In 1989, the Harbour Board was disestablished and ownership of shares in the port passed to The Bay of Plenty and Waikato Regional Councils. The Company is now public, with a diverse shareholding.

The port continued to develop and modernize during the 1990s and 2000s. A significant development in 1999 was the establishment of New Zealand's first fully integrated inland port service, MetroPort Auckland.

In 2000, the port entered a 50:50 joint-venture with Northland Port Corporation Limited to develop and operate a deepwater port at Marsden Point near Whangarei.

The port was a joint winner of the 2004 Australasian Port of the Year Award run by Lloyd's List Daily Commercial News, the first time a New Zealand port had won a Lloyd's List award.

With the trend to larger cargo vessels making fewer port calls, Tauranga has increasingly become the only New Zealand, or only North Island, port serviced by international shipping lines, at the expense of ports in Auckland, Wellington, Lyttleton and elsewhere. Lines include Maersk/Hamburg Sud, CMA CGM, ANL and Swires.

The port is now New Zealand's largest container terminal. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, it also hosted increasing numbers of cruise ships.