SOLD TO JAPAN

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 208, 3 September 1929, Page 7

SOLD TO JAPAN

OLD STEAMER SUSSEX,

OFFICERS RETURN TO AUCKLAND.

Captain W. Hender (master), Mr. W. S. Hall (chief engineer), and six other officers and engineers of the steamer Sussex returned to Auckland by the Ulimaroa to-day, after delivering the vessel to her Japanese buyers at Osaka. The chief steward and three of the enghiers are awaiting orders at Sydney. Under charter to the Union * Company, the Sussex traded between Calcutta and Ne\v Zealand for nearly 30 years, but she has now gone East for good. It is likely that her buyers will break her up, since the Japanese, in order to encourage their own shipbuilding industry, have instituted a tax of ;>/ per ton on all foreign vessels bought to sail under the Japanese flag. Therefore, unless she is sold to other buyers in the East, the old Federal steamer will probably be handed over to the shipbreakers.

The officers of the Sussex returned from Japan to Australia in the steamer Arahura, which will also pass into Japanese hands when she returns to the Orient.