Small Boat Flotilla For Oronsay Tourists

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30945, 29 December 1965, Page 10

Small Boat Flotilla For Oronsay Tourists

Lyttelton Harbour became a miniature Dunkirk yesterday, crowded with small boats running a continuous shuttleservice between Cashin quay and the P and O-Orient Line cruise ship Oronsay anchored off Camp Bay. The ship’s boats were supplemented with hired launches and the Lyttelton Harbour Board’s pilot launch to ferry nearly all of the 1241 passengers from the ship to the dozens of buses and taxis waiting on the quay to take them on organised tours and private visits.

The Oronsay came direct to Lyttelton from Sydney, passing Lord Howe Island on Christmas Eve, spending Christmas Day off Norfolk Island, and finally fighting a Force 10 gale through Cook Strait to reach the port spattered with salt spray. The ship arrives in Plcton today, where she will take aboard passengers who took an overland tour from Christchurch through the Lewis Pass to Westport and then on through the Buller gorge to Nelson and Picton.

Captain E. Cowan was a bit worried yesterday morning that he might have to weigh anchor and steam out to sea, leaving more than 500 passengers ashore.

“I don't like being in port in an open anchorage,” he said, striding across his cabin to tap the barometer. “The barometer's at rock bottom, and anything could happen. We’ve got 540 passengers ashore for lunch, but I think the weather will be O.K. until lunch time.”

Captain Cowan said the Oronsay was rather deep for the port of Lyttelton. But next time he brought his ship to Lyttelton, he hoped to take her right to the wharf. Last time Captain Cowan was in Lyttelton he was

aboard the company's tanker Mantua, chartered to an oil company. Since then he has been master of the Himalaya and the Iberia. He expects to spend 18 months in command of the Oronsay, of which he was only recently made captain, and then spend four months ashore before being posted to another ship. Captain Cowan likes passengers. “Passenger ships are much more interesting,” he said. “There’s never a dull moment" Crossing his fingers, he said there had been no “incidents" on the present cruise, which left London on November 6. No-one had fallen overboard.

After the New Zealand cruise. which ends at Sydney on January 5, the Oronsay will make a Pacific cruise to Lautoka, Suva, Honolulu, Vancouver, San Francisco, Los Angeles and hack to Sydney on February 7. The homeward journey will be made through the Far East, Middle East and Mediterranean. arriving at London on March 28.

After the rough weather in Cook Strait, the Oronsay needed some minor repairs during its day at anchor. Some of the crew spent the day touching up the paintwork and renewing glass in bulkhead doors. Others fished over the side or through portholes. There was dancing and bingo aboard last night, and a cruise in Pelorus Sound on New Year’s Eve will culminate in a New Year’s Eve gala dance.

Captain Cowan said that 99 per cent of the passengers were Australians who had joined the ship particularly for this cruise, and the remainder were New Zealanders, Americans and Canadians who had joined the Oronsay earlier.