VOLUNTEER CREW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 114, 17 May 1933, Page 8

VOLUNTEER CREW.

MAUNGANUI'S MEN RETURN. Intensely proud of their sliort but successful career at sea, the volunteer crew on the Mauiiganui were a happy crowd "when they; arrived back at Wellington (reports the "Dominion"). If all were not exactly enthusiastic over tho weather they experienced while working tho Maunganui to Sydney, they were at least unanimous in saying that they very much enjoyed tho whole adventure. "Wo could have made the passage back to Wellington in record time," | boasted one young volunteer in tie engine room, "if only the ship hadn't been kept marking time for a few hours outside tho Heads on Sunday night." Seamen, stewards and engine-room workers all agreed that they liad liad a "wonderful time" in. -spite of general and acute seasickness during the first two days out on the run to Sydney. Matiy of the volunteers, most of them young men, had never been on a long sea trip before/ so their first two days out, ."when the Maunganui pitched and bucked a heavy storm, were not the happiest. On the second day two portliole-s were smashed by waves, and later tho vessel, was hove-to for an hour and three-quarters. At that time only four stewards were "on their feet," and it was then that 20 New Zealand naval ratings, on their way to Sydney to undergo training, did noble feats of washing babies for incapacitated mothers and genreally taking over tho stewards' work. The weather all the way back was light and the seas calm. The volunteers eaid that they could not be too enthusiastic over the treatment they received from the ships officers during the whole, trip. It was related that an overhauling engineer in Sydney, after completing his work on the engines, said that the stokehold and engine-room were a credit to the new men.