Workshop closing

Press, 22 May 1986, Page 1

Workshop closing

Another engineering firm, APV Engineering, announced yesterday that its Christchurch workshop would be closed and 20 jobs lost. The firm’s South Island contracts manager, Mr Jack de Graaf, said yesterday that only the workshop in Moorhouse Avenue would be affected. Other parts of the busi-

ness would remain in Christchurch and continue to provide 30 jobs. The workshop will close on June 18. Three other Christchurch engineering firms, Andersons Engineering, Ltd, Stainless Castings, Ltd, and Beadle Welding and Engineering, also closed this year. APV Engineering is a

refrigeration engineering firm. Mr de Graaf said the downturn in farming and the meat-processing industry had caused problems. Recently it had got so bad that action had had to be taken, he said.

The firm had a workshop in Auckland. Both were now getting only about half the work they needed. Mr de Graaf said the firm was already trying to find jobs for workers who would be laid off. Mr Ged O’Connell, assistant secretary of the Canterbury branch of the Engineers’ Union, said last evening that the 20 engineers affected would hold a stop-work meeting this morning. Union representatives would meet the management and try to save some jobs. Most of the members of his union who were affected were skilled tradesmen, and would not have too much difficulty finding alternative jobs, he said.

Mr Per-Olaf Bengtzen, aged 26, and Ms Tanya Stanford, aged 24, aboard Mr Bengtzen’s yacht Calidris (Latin for sandpiper) in Lyttelton Harbour yesterday. Mr Bengtzen left

Sweden four years ago to sail the world in the 7.6 m single-skinned yacht which he had bought a year before. He met Ms Stanford during a stopover in Sydney last October and the two sailed for Tasmania and then to Fiordland.

Mr Bengtzen, who has sailed for 15 years, was inspired by a book, “The Dove,” in which a young man sailed round the world.

Mr Bengtzen and Ms Stanford have been in Lyttelton for a week and will stay another week before leaving for Napier, then Rarotonga. They are not travelling any set route on their world cruise.