SOUNDS OF LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 285, 1 December 1932, Page 11

SOUNDS OF LIFE.

STEAMER WAITEMATA. PREPARING FOR SEA. TWO YEARS IN IDLENESS. After a silence of two years sounds of life echoed from the steamer Waiteniata this morning. The vessel, which was recently sold by the Union Steam Ship Company to William Crosby and Company, of Melbourne, was removed from her anchorage off Hobson Bay to the North Wall yesterday afternoon, and to-day a start was made in getting the ship ready for sea. Present outward appearances of the Waitemata betray her long period of inactivity, although it is claimed that actually she is in remarkably good condition. Along her present water-line— and that is low, for the ship is empty— can be seen thousands of small mussels that have made a home on the ship's hull, and her topsides are badly in need of a coat of paint. When first the ship went to her anchorage her funnel was red, but to-day it is flattering to describe the colour as a dirty pink. On the steamer's iron decks is the same evidence of past idleness. Lengths of planking, steel hawsers, and a Jacob's ladder are included among the litter on the foredeck. In the galley amidships there is ample evidence ot human occupation, although the present untidy appearance of the place would be frowned at by the most casual of skippers. Parsley growing in a flower pot is a reminder that until yesterday the idle ship had been the floating home of her watchman. Down in the engine room this morning men went noisily about their jobs. The steamy smell that pervaded the place seemed evidence in rebuttal of the fact that the ship had long been laid u;>, but a workman's hat and lunchcase on a boiler top looked strangely out of place. At present the noise that comes from the ship is being made by only a few men, but when it is known jusfr how much work will have to be done before the steamer leaves Auckland it is likely that more hands will be given a job. The work to be done will depend largely upon the surveyors. Certain it is that before the Waitemata, which is 13 years old, and until 1030 was a well-known unit in the trans-Pacific cargo service, leaves Auckland she will be placed in dry dock at Devonport to have the mussels and marine growth scraped from her hull. A fair amount of work is to be done on the freighter at this port, but alterations that are proposed will be carried out in Axistralia. In the meantime the date of the ship's sailing from Auckland is uncertain, a* also is her future trade, although Mr. \V. IT. iSwanton, representing her new owners, stated earlier in the week that she would probably look for freights between' Australian and Mediterranean ports. Captain F. A. Nelson, who arrived by the Monowai from Sydney on Monday evening, will be in charge of the ship when she departs, with Mr. F. V. Brown, who also came over in the Monowai, as his chief engineer.