Record Loading Exceeds Meat-Diversion Plans

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31560, 23 December 1967, Page 1

Record Loading Exceeds Meat-Diversion Plans

(New Zealand Press Association) TIMARU, December 22. The New Zealand Shipping Company’s Tekoa will sail from Timaru on Sunday morning a fortnight ahead of schedule and with a new fast turn-round time on the New Zealand coast for overseas freighters.

She will sail for Belfast at 8 a.m. on Sunday after taking on a full cargo in six and a half working days. A small quantity of meat, and a few hundred bales of wool as deck cargo, will be loaded tomorrow.

The Tekoa initiated the South Island meat diversion programme under which all meat for London and Liverpool will be loaded by the mechanical conveyors at Timaru and Bluff. The meat from nine freezing works from North Canterbury to Burnside at Dunedin is being channelled out through Timaru.

The loading started on December 15. When it is completed tomorrow the ship will have taken on 4632 tons (300,103 running carcases), of meat, 3800 bales from the recent Timaru wool sale, 60 casks of casings and 101 tons of bulk tallow. Unequalled Rate To do this it will have worked five full and three half days to give it a loading rate unequalled by any vessel on the New Zealand coast, or in any country where waterfront working hours parallel those of. New Zealand.

On last Tuesday’s loading, the ship also set a new high for the daily cargo rate. It took on 901 tons (72,254 carcases) through the four loader units and by ship’s gear. The previous day the total was 875 tons.

The smallest tally was on the initial day of the diversion programme. After setting up, which occupied about the first two hours, the ship took on 700 tons of meat and 747 bales of wool.

This rate of loading must raise for the Meat Board and Overseas Shipowners’ Committee the question whether the diversion of South Island meat has been too loosely programmed. The loading rate has been based on 500 tons a day, and on that basis the Tekoa was not due to sail from Timaru until January 6. Given A Week The next ship programmed is the Majestic, which is scheduled to berth at Timaru on January 7. She is to take on 2260 tons of meat and

some general cargo, and has been given a week in which to do it.

With the loaders able to put meat on a ship at a rate greater than a ton and a half a minute the Majestic should clear Timaru for Bluff in three days. It is intimated that the Timaru loading equipment and ship’s gear can handle meat at the rate of 1000 tons a day. This figure might have been reached last Tuesday if the meat had been available for loading. The loading of the Tekoa has been watched keenly by shipping and exporting interests throughout the Dominion. It has proved the feasability of a tightly co-ordinated plan involving primarily the meat works, railways and stevedores. Speeding Up The only diversion from the planning was in the rate of drawing from freezing works based on loading 500 tons a day, this had to be speeded to keep the loaders fully occupied. Unless there is a corresponding speed-up in the programming of vessels, and whether this is feasible is not yet certain, it is likely that the loaders will be idle for longer periods than they are in use. However, the fact that the Tekoa was programmed for a one-port loading at Timaru must be a factor to be considered. The real test will come with the Majestic, which is to load at Lyttelton, Timaru and Bluff after coming out from the United Kingdom in ballast

The Majestic is set down to clear Bluff on January 23. If its time 6n the coast is shortened considerably it will then be appropriate for the Conference Lines to have another look at the programme.