Support dashes Amokura hopes

Press, 13 May 1987, Page 8

Support dashes Amokura hopes

PA Auckland Australian union support for Auckland nautical instructors in dispute with the Education Department has dashed hopes of an early return to sea for the coastal oil tanker Amokura.

The tanker reamined stranded' at Whangarei last evening with insufficient crew qualified under a new international convenant to handle cargo on the vital coastal oil run from the Marsden Point refinery. A ban on short, unscheduled courses by Auckland Nautical School instructors has further embarrassed the Union Shipping Group, which is under pressure to train more than 90 crew of its four coastal tankers.

The group had called in an instructor from an Australian company, but yesterday had to send him home after the Australian Merchant Service Guild threatened to disrupt that company’s own coastal tanker runs.

The Union Group has so far been able to muster enough certificated crew to run limited shifts on its other tankers.

But while port oil stocks are comfortable, the oil industry expressed concern yesterday lest the dispute drag on and keep the Amokura in port.

Mrs Jeanie Borthwick, who was described as “too frail to go to work” when she was young, celebrated her 100th birthday in Christchurch yesterday. Mrs Borthwick, a resident of Rhodes Memorial Convalescent Home, shared her birthday with a nurse-aide at the home, Mrs Sandra Arundel, who turned 26. The matron of the