URGENTLY NEEDED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 243, 13 October 1936, Page 11

URGENTLY NEEDED.

MORE RADIO BEACONS. COOK STRAIT LOCALITY. AWATEA'S EXPERIENCE. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Monday. ' The urgent need for radio beacon stations for the Cook Strait region, recently promised by the Minister of Marine, the Hon. P. Fraser, was exemplified during the week-end in the ease of the trans-Tasman liner Aivatea. The ship, which left Sydney on Friday evening with over 400 passengers for Wellington, encountered bad weathesoon after her departure and experienced a heavy swell all the way across the Tasman. No solar observations could be got during the passage, so on Sunday the Awatea called up the Wellington radio station, ZLW, and requested that radio bearings should be given from Stephen's Island between midnight of Sunday and one o'clock on Monday morning. The ship was informed that bearings could not be supplied as application should have been made before two o'clock on Sunday morning. This is in accordance with a notice to mariners issued by the Marine Department on May 29, 1935. On behalf of the ship, however, it is agreed that it is not always possible to know 24 hours in advance that thick weather is likely to be met with in making the approach to Cook Strait, or that radio bearings will be required. Actually the Awatea made an excellent course from Sydney to New Zealand, and although she did not sight the Cape Farewell light, which she passed somewhere after midnight on Sunday, she made a good landfall, sighting the Stephen's Island light shortly before four o'clock and passing it at 4.30 this morning. It is considered that until permanent radio beacons are installed in the Cook Strait region the safe navigation of ships coming in from the westward would be greatly facilitated if the hours of application for the services of the Stephen's Island radio station for radio bearing purposes were modified to suit tho convenience of navigators and the exigencies created by sudden weather changes that cannot be foreseen. Interference with the light beacons guiding vessel* into Wellington Harbour is caused by the headlights of motor cars at Petone, according to complaints received from master mariners bv the Wellington Harbour Board. With the object of overcoming the difficulty the board to-nirlit asked the Petone Borough Council whether it would atrree to the board's erecting a brick wall a chain long and four feet six inches higb on the seaward side of certain streets. The request was referred to a committee.