New Tasman ship much delayed

Press, 29 November 1976, Page 14

New Tasman ship much delayed

PA Sydney

Rotoiti, is under construction, and is also a year late.

'ranged schedules,” a Union Company spokesman said.

There will be little surprise at the claim by the chairman of the Union Steam Ship Company (Sir Peter Abeles) that the cost of building the Union Rotorua had been “a disaster.” Sir Peter made the comment during a press conference on board the sAust3oM ship in Sydney. The Union Rotorua began a fortnightly Tasman service between Sydney, Auckland and Mount Maunganui yesterday. The 14,420 deadweight tonne roll-on ship is the largest in the Union Company fleet and was built at the Whyalla .shipyards. It was delivered a year late and had originally been estimated to cost sAustl2M. A sister ship, the Union

Sir Peter Abeles said that the Union Company would not get any more vessels built in Australia when it could get ships built for half the price overseas. Whyalla won the contracts for the Rotorua and Rotoiti from world-wide tenders in 1973, because of a 25 per cent Government subsidy and its experience in gasturbine ship constrction. After the fitting of specialised equipment in Singapore the Union Rotorua developed problems with the gas-turbine engines, and then almost lost a propeller. Because of the last-minute teething problems the Tasman service started from Sydney, instead of Auckland as originally planned. “We had to fit in with ar-

He added that everything was now working well, and this was in line with Sir Peter’s comment that the (company “couldn’t be happier” with the quality of the shipbuilding.