TWO CROSSINGS A WEEK

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 202, 23 May 1936, Page 8

TWO CROSSINGS A WEEK

Awatca’s Tasman Service SHIP TO ENTER RUNNING IN SEPTEMBER Two Tasman crossings a week will be made by the Union Company’s new 15,000-ton luxury liner Awatea when she enters the intercolonial passenger service next September. The vessel’s time-table running allows her about 69 hours to make the crossing, at an average speed of over 20 knots. The schedule of the liner’s sailings has now been settled and shows that she will leave .Sydney every Friday for Wellington and Auckland alternately. .She will arrive at her New Zealand port on the following Monday, leaving again on the Tuesday, arriving back at Sydney the following Friday morning and leaving there again the same afternoon for New Zealand.

Very little cargo will be carried in the vessel, as the time allowed in port at Sydney will not be sufficient for much more than the handling ot mails and passengers’ baggage. The liner Monowai. which at present maintains the company’s intercolonial passenger service in conjunction with the Canadian Australasian and Union Royal Mail Line vessels, is to be withdrawn from the service early in July, when she will make a winter cruise to the islands from Auckland. On her return from the cruise she will come to Wellington, and will pay off and lay up here. The Marama will take up the Monowai’s running and will remain in this service until ttie arrival of the Awatea, which is duo at Wellington early in September from the United Kingdom. The Awatea will enter tbe Sydney service leaving Wellington on September 16 and Auckland on September 19 for Sydney. The Marama will then lay up until toward the end of October, when she will, for the summer months, maintain tbe Melbourne-South Isiand-Welling-ton service.

The Mau'ngauui, on her arrival at Sydney on November 14 on her last trip in the San Francisco service, will also enter the intercolonial passenger service. The Makura, which is due ar Sydney on December 12, on her last trip in the San Francisco service, will be withdrawn from service.