Dissatisfied diners delayed ferry

Press, 24 February 1977, Page 4

Dissatisfied diners delayed ferry

|PA Wellington I Members of the Cooks and Stewards’ Union walked off the rail ferry Aratika on Tuesday because they had no onions or gherkins with their midday meal, and because there were no chocolate biscuits with the tea, a Railways Department spokesman said yesterday. Although it was not clear who was actually involved in the dispute, the cooks and stewards and members of the New Zealand Seamen’s Union apparently walked off the ship because they did not like the meal.

“They seem disatisfied with the standard of food on board, and they have gone up the road,” the master, Captain, Mike Perfect, said.

A Railways Department official said yesterday it was the shortage of onions and gherkins that had caused the problem. Passengers do not get a meal on board, as the union

members are engaged in another dispute which has kept the “self-service” cafeteria and the ferry’s shop closed for some time. Union officials would not comment yesterday on the dispute.

The Aratika was to have sailed from Wellington at 11.40 a.m. on Tuesday for Picton, but because of the dispute it did not sail until 2 p.m.

Sailings were back to normal yesterday, as were the sailings of the Aranui, after repairs to a window smashed by a freak wave on Tuesday.

About 15 people were hurt, [most of them cut by flying glass, when a window in the forward passenger lounge was smashed as the Aranui was about seven kilometres out on its voyage from Wellington to Picton. The Aranui hove to for an hour while officers and crew shored up the window, and a doctor on board tended the

passengers who had been hurt. Another doctor met the ship when it arrived in Picton, and five people were advised to go to the casualty department at the hospital there.

Shipwrights fitted new glass to effect permanent repairs early yesterday, to enable the Aranui to leave on time at 10 a.m. In another incident, the rail ferry Arahanga went aground in Tory Channel on Tuesday evening, and divers were called in at Picton yesterday to inspect the vessel’s hull.

Railways officials have issued no explanation of the grounding, which was apparently little more than a touch on the rocky sea off Clay Point.

Captain C. Graham took the vessel back to sea at 9 a.m. yesterday after the divers announced there was little or no damage.