MONOWAI PREPARING

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 84, 9 April 1938, Page 10

MONOWAI PREPARING

SYDNEY ANZAC TRIP

The Monowai, lying at Queen'i Wharf No. 2, has a pronounced list, but it is quite intentional. She has ben careened in order that her plates may be cleaned of the.heavy coating of,marine growth which accumulated during the seven months she was laid up at Evans Bay. A ship is careened by means of her water ballast tanks, so that her plates below the waterline are exposed- sufficiently to be cleaned. This saves the1 expense of docking. The Monowai is being thoroughly overhauled and repainted and will soon have regained her former smart appearance. The Monowai is to be one of the two ships which will take returned soldiers to Sydney for the Anzac Day parade. The Maunganui will also make the trip with returned men and will be got ready as soon as she has finished discharging the cargo which she brought from Australia on Thursday. On the day of sailing, April 19, three intercolonial liners will be, leaving Wellington for Sydney—the Awatea with a large number of passengers, and the Maunganui and Monowai with about 1300 returned men. MONOWAI'S COMMANDER. A well-known Union Company commander, Captain A. T. Toten, will.ba in charge of the Monowai, and ha arrived in Wellington from Australia this week for the purpose. He ms extensive service with the Union Co., having joined the company in 1907 as fourth officer of the Marama, and after serving in the various grades he received his first command, the Taviuni, in November, 1917. For the next ten years Captain Toten commanded many vessels trading on the Australian coast, including the Karma, Koranui, and Oonah. In February,- 1928, he was transferred to the Maunganui and Maheno in the'intercolonial service, and for a period was attached to tne Maori in the Wellington-Lyttelton service and the Hauraki in the transPacific trade. In November, 1929/ he returned to the Maunganui in the San Francisco trade, and later transferred to the Tahiti in the same service.v m December, 1930, he was appointed to the Monowai when that vessel first entered the San Francisco service, and during the next seven years he served in that vessel as well as in the Maunganui and Marama. Just cently Captain Toten has been relieving in the Niagara and completed his holiday prior to coming to Wellington to assume command of tne Monowai.