Fresh face at sea for ferry

Press, 15 July 1983, Page 1

Fresh face at sea for ferry

A new third mate has joined the inter-island freight ferry Spirit of Free Enterprise, and her fresh face is a sign of changing times at sea. Miss Roselyne Lidstone, of Timaru, was "thrilled” to receive a telephone call this week inviting her to join the ship’s crew.

Her first day on the ferry was at Wellington on Wednesday and she already loves it.

“It is a nice friendly ship. The atmosphere is terrific,” Miss lidstone, aged 22, said in an interview aboard the vessel yesterday. The days when it was unheard of to have a female crew member seem over; now a well-qualified one is considered an advantage.

Miss Lidstone is one of the few New Zealand women who have decided to carve out a career at sea. It is believed that there are only six female crew members working on New Zealand ships. One woman is a radio officer, and the other four are apprentices.

She was the first female sea-going officer cadet taken on by the Union Steam Ship Company. She served her two-year cadetship with the Union Company before qualifying as a third mate in June. Since then she has sent away many job applications but, with a host of qualified seamen competing for a dwindling number of jobs, she had no success — until this week. Now she faces the challenge of doing the 8 p.m. to midnight watch as well as helping to keep an eye on cargo work. However, she

says she is looking forward to the work and her next aim is to obtain her mate’s ticket. Asked whether she would like to become master of a vessel one day, she said she would take things “one step at a time.”

“I am doing something I have always wanted to do. I would like to think being a woman has nothing to do with it.”

Her attempts to gain a job on a ship hark back to the days when she obtained University Entrance at Timaru College. Applications to overseas shipping lines drew a blank, so Miss Lidstone worked in a factory and for a veterinarian until the Union Company accepted her. During her cadetship she sailed in all types of vessels, from roll-on ships to bulk carriers, undergoing the same training as male cadets.

Naturally, with women crew members being something of a rarity aboard ships, her presence did raise an eyebrow or two among old sailors. However, her perseverance has now paid off.

Not being as physically strong as male crew members on a ship was a disadvantage, she said. It just meant she had to work out ways of lifting heavy objects instead of charging in and' picking them up as some men did. Was sea sickness a worry? “Occasionally. But you just have to hold a bucket under your arm and keep on working,” she said. Who knows, some day she may even be the master of a ship calling at Lyttelton.-