The photo that initially got me interested in the Maro is a black & white image taken during her sea trials. They show the hull and superstructure in a mid tone colour. Pretty hard to tell what it was. In late 1945 there would have been plenty of surplus grey paint in Auckland. After nearly 6 years of war everyone was pretty sick of grey paint but there weren’t a lot of other choices. Paint was still rationed and this was the time when every railway wagon/carriage, farm building, fence, shed, and corrugated iron house roof in the country was painted Red Oxide. In those days if it wasn’t painted Red Oxide it was primer grey, waiting to be painted Red Oxide.
The funnel band and interior appear to be white (option 1).
The black & white profile shot from a few years later is probably very dark navy blue hull with a white superstructure – as were all of the CSR cargo ships. The funnels were the same hull blue with a red band and a black top strip (option 2). I’ve already got 5 tug models with dark blue hulls so that colour scheme is not doing it for me at the moment.
The next image shows the CSR funnel and company pennant designs. The lettering on the funnels was only used on the cargo ships, not the tugs.
The only colour photo I have of the Maro is from the 1960s or ‘70s when she was in private ownership with Subritzky Shipping and show her with a black and bright pale green hull, white bulwarks/superstructure with mid green trim/roofs. Black capping rail and deck equipment. The funnel is black with a green band and white stripes above and below it. The wheelhouse/bridge has a green band running around it. The superstructure over the engineroom had been completely altered when this photo was taken and totally changes the looks. They also raised the bulwarks at the bow and added some boxt structures around the funnel. It all looks rubbish but the colours are quite nice (option 3).
Subritzkys used her for general towing, a lot of their work was taking supplies out to the islands in the Hauraki Gulf. They are still going today as SeaLink and operate ferries and freight to Waiheke, Rakino, Great Barrier and several other islands out from Auckland. They don’t use the green livery these days.
I had planned on making mine as it is in the first photo I found: brand new and one colour over-all: Red Oxide above the waterline and superstructure, black below the waterline, (there would have been a ton of black anti-fouling paint available, ex-navy), teak deck. Primer grey or white roof and trim. White band on the funnel and white interior.
TimB made a Thames tosher tug on RCGroups in all Red Oxide and it looks great. Red Oxide’s colour and tone varies greatly depending on the age of the paintjob, wear & tear, application, manufacturer and the amount of sun it gets so it could be at one end, or other, of the Red Oxide spectrum. I’ve always liked the Moran Tugs maroon colour, which is almost in the range.
However, the more I looked at the 1970’s photo in the green and white, the more I liked that colour scheme. The green is a very 60’s colour. So I’ve decided to go for that. It’s first repaint under new ownership – before they altered and ruined the superstructure lines.