EMPTY LUXURY LINER

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 June 1932, Page 5

EMPTY LUXURY LINER

NEW ZEALANDER’S EXPERIENCE. “It was like travelling the ocean in a deserted castle,” said a young New Zealander, Mr A. Murdoch, in describing bib ' voyage from Rotterdam to Osaka in the Niew Amsterdam, a liner of 18,000 tons, which had been sold for £lO,OOO. “She was a luxury liner that had served her usefulness on the Western Ocean, and, being too slow and expensive to run in competition with more modern vessels, she was sold to the shipbreakers and I travelled as an engineer in her,” said Mr Murdoch. They were three months on the trip, which was made via the Cape. Mr Murdoch was formerly an engineer with the Bluff Harbour Board and made a voyage to England about 18 months ago. While there he secured a position on the Niew Amsterdam. “It was a weird sensation travelling in a liner that had taken thousands of passengers in her time, across the Atlantic,” said Mr Murdoch. “She was sold absolutely intact. Nothing was taken out of her, and a firm of London ship deliverers secured the contract for £lO,OOO to deliver her at Osaka. No other country would look at such a thing. “Japan is buying up all the world’s -old tonnage, Osaka Harbour is filled with derelicts, and the breaking up process is going on all the time. The Japanese find a use for everything. They strip the ships clean, and even the boiler plates are cut up and used

for reinforcing concrete. Nothing is allowed to go to waste in Japan. I can’t imagine any other country buying an old hull for £lO,OOO and paying another £lO,OOO for delivery. “It certainly did seem queer travelling the oceans in the Niew Amsterdam. We had a crew of 60. The firemen were .Arabs and Egyptians and the sailors a very mixed lot. There were Russians, Greeks , Dutchmen, Germans—in fact, all nations appeared to be represented. The officers had the use of all the palatial lounges and staterooms, and were more than comfortable. It was a calm trip, too, but there was something that gave one the creeps—I suppose it was the fact that a great ship that had pulsated with life and laughter for years was ploughing her way to her own grave.”