FINAL VOYAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 56, 3 September 1936, Page 9

FINAL VOYAGE

THE LINER ORSOVA

SENTIMENT OF THE SEA

SYDNEY'S FAREWELL

(From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, August 19. The sentiment of the sea and the vessels which traverse it was vividly expressed in Sydney last weekend. Hundreds of men with heads bared stood silent on a Sydney wharf on Saturday as the famous Orient liner Orsova' moved out on her final voyage. She Is to be withdrawn from the service. With the Orsova are linked piping days of peace, from 1909 to 1914, grim war days in which she played a noble part, and years of economic struggle after the war. Throughout Saturday morning, a stream of callers passed up the gangway to the deck and the cabin of Captain L. F. Hubbard. "It is amazing that there is so much sentiment for this old liner," he said. "One man told me, that he came to Sydney on the Orsova on her maiden voyage. He landed with 13s 6d. When this man read that she was making her last voyage, he travelled 150 miles from an inland town, to bid her farewell." The Orsova has been engaged in the Australian trade for 27 years. She has carried tens of thousands of tons of Australian primary produce, and thousands of travellers have, spent pleasant days on her decks. The arrival of the Orsova in Sydney on August 7, 1909, aroused keen interest, for she was the forerunner of her type and size. She was considered a leviathan of the ocean; she now gives way to progress, and it is not unlikely that she will be sold to shipbreakers. The Orsova continued uninterruptedly in the Australian service until the outbreak of war. On July 14, 1915, she left Sydney as Australian troopship No. A 67. On what was to be a transport voyage, the Orsova left London on March 12, 1917, commanded by Captain Coad, then commodore of the line, and after a delayed passage down the Channel was torpedoed by.a German submarine. As the only way of saving her she was beached. The' Orsova was again commissioned on January 9, 1919, and left Liverpool with Australian troops, who wefe being expatriated. With the exception of delay caused by a maritime strike in 1925, the ' Orsova's record was again one of routine. GOOD-BYE MESSAGES. As the gangway on Saturday went down the liner began to move. Old associates of the Orsova watched in thoughtful silence the rarely-seen pay-ing-off pennant, 200 ft long, buoyed by a bladder at the level of the after masthead. Ferry steamers hooted, flags dipped off Garden Island, but oldtimers had eyes for nothing but the ship. As the Orsova passed outside the Heads, a string of flags fluttered from the signal station yards at South Head. "Good-bye" was the message. The answering pennant fluttered from the Orsova. Then, as the liner drew abreast of the station, from her mast fluttered "Good-bye." In the signal tower, Mr. D. L. Dowdell, general manager in Australia of the Orient Line, saw the last of the Orsova. ■Even the Navy joined in the farewell. The Captain-Superintendent of Sydney Naval Establishments (Captain Scott) sent the, following message to Captain Hubbard:—-"On the departure' of the Orsova on her last voyage, the Royal Australian Navy at Sydney wishes her a good voyage home, and congratulates her on a splendid record of service." Captain Hubbard replied:—"l thank you for your signal and good wishes received this morning. Will you please give the following message to all concerned, 'In saying good-bye for this fine old ship, I desire, on behalf of the many officers and men who have served on her, to thank all officers and ratings of the Royal Australian Navy for the many kindnesses received, and to express their great appreciation of the kind message sent on this, our last voyage." A SEA ROAMER. On the day that the Orsova left, the British motor-ship Levernbank came rolling into port. She left England in July last year, and has not been home since. She has voyaged 81,264 miles, and called at Port Arthur (Texas), South African ports, Colombo, Siam, the west coast of South America, Japan, Manila, Philadelphia, Nova Scotia, and now Sydney. She will unload a cargo of paper here, and then load copra in the South Sea Islands for Europe—and this time she may get home. Her cargoes have been oil, asphalt, rice, nitrates, sugar, and general. "Aye and we are like the music," said the chief engineer, Mr. J. S. Allan, who comes from the north of Scotland. "We just keep goin' round and round.' Wireless sets in every cabin break the monotony of the long voyage for the Levernbank men.,