AWATEA AND MONTEREY

Grey River Argus, 10 August 1937, Page 5

AWATEA AND MONTEREY

TASMAN CROSSING Matson Liner Quicker [Aust. & N.Z. Cable Assn.l (Received August 9, at 8.10 p.m.) SYDNEY, August 8. The Union liner, Awatea, and Matson liner, Monterey, arrived here from Auckland to-day. The “Sun” reports that the Awatea’s passage occupied sixty-three hours and forty minutes. The Monterey’s passage took 62 hours 25 minutes. Captain Davey, of the Awatea, in an interview, said: “I was in communication with Captain Johanson, of the Monterey, many times during the voyage. 1 had never met Captain Johanson. He always signed his messages: “Aloha Johanson.” I was not going to allow him to get away with Hawaiian like that, so T signed mine “Kia Ora Davey.” Thus I gave him a bit of Maori. He continued: “We had a fast run to North Cape. We maintained 221 knots till we turned the corner, where we had to fight a severe blow. The seas were thirty feet across our bows. The storm lasted for sixteen hours. We gained speed on Sunday when the weather was finer. Throughout the trip, we average zt)l knots. We slowed down at 4.40 a.m. to-day. as we were not needed at the wharf until S.lO a.m. On Friday last the Awatea cleared Auckland harbour limits at 5.20 p.m. The Monterey cleared at 9.10 p.m. The master of the Awatea, Captain A. H. Davey, said he did not entertain any intention to race the Matson liner, as racing was definitely forbidden by the company’s regulations. “I never stop to pick daisies,” however,” was his comment. Because the instructions to the Matson Line masters were against unnecessary speeding. no endeavour would be made by him to reach Sydney before the Awatea, said Captain E. R. Johanson, master of the Monterey. “Our maximum speed will be 20.5 knots and no circumstances will prompt me to exceed that,” he said. France s "® Big Liner SETS NEW ATLANTIC RECORD. (Received August 8, 10.5 p.m.) LONDON, August 9. The French liner “Normandie” has crossed the Atlantic from west to east in ninety-four hours seven minutes. She travelled at an average speed of thirty-one point twenty knots tn hour. She broke her own record of ninety-six hours six minutes which was established in March last, by one hour 59 minutes. Her average speed on the March record run was 30.99 knots.

A GIANT LINER. WILL SHE VISIT DOMINION? AUCKLAND, August 6. The Norddeutscher Lloyd turbine steamer Bremen, one of the largest vessels afloat, and holder of the blue riband of the Atlantic until it was wrested from her by the French liner Normandie, may visit New Zealand next year. This news was brought by the German steamer Anhalt, which arrived in Auckland from Galveston, Texas. The Bremen is leaving New York on a ninety days’ world cruise next January and will enter the .Pacific via the Panama Canal. She will be the largest vessel to. pass through that waterway. Should she call at Auckland she will break all records for the port. Of 51,665 tons gross burden she will be by far the largest, ship of any description to visit New Zealand. In length she outdistances the great 40,000-ton battleship Hood, which is 861 feet overall, against 899 feet of the Bremen. Her beam is 102 feet and is 48 feet in moulded depth. “The latest information we have is that there is no intention of the liner Bremen coming to Auckland,” said a member of the staff of Henderson and Macfarlane, Limited, agents for the Norddeutscher-Lloyd Line. “Present arrangements are such that she will not call at either Australia or New Zealand,” he added. It was explained that the Bremen, one of the fastest ships in the Atlantic had been chartered by the New York firm of Raymond, Whitcombe and Company for a world cruise. From New York, the Bremen would go to Europe, South Africa, India, the Straits Settlements, Java, China, Japan, the • Philippines, Honolulu, California and back to New York by way of the Panama Canal. _ The harbourmaster, Captain H. H. Sergeant, said he had no advice of the company’s intention to bring the Bremen to Auckland.

MARAMA'S FAREWELL. WELLINGTON, August 8. The red funnel so familiar on the New Zealand coast, the yellow funnel of a hospital ship, and now the black funnel of a Chinese line, nave all distinguished the good ship Manama during her adventurous life, but to those who served in her during the war years she will always be remembered as one of the best equipped floating hospitals in the British service. Many members of her war-time complement are dead, otners are scattered, but between twenty and thirty gathered to bid their old ship tarewell.

The Marama still looks a fine ship, fit to sail many miles of ocean. She was first commissioned as a hospital ship towards the end of 1915, and was handed over to the shipwrights and carpenters at Port Chalmers. Although the interior of the ship had to be rebuilt to provide for 750 hospital cots, a surgery and operating theatre in her dining saloon, emergency cots and lifts for the conveyance of stretcher cases, her three decks were transformed in a few weeks. The outside of her hull also changed from dark green to white, with huge red crosses, and the red of her funnel gave way to yellow. Her 'first commission as a hospital ship was in the Mediterranean, and after three months there she entered the cross-Channel service between France and England. After a year spent on the other side of the world the Marama returned to New Zealand' with wounded New Zealand and Australian soldiers. From then on she had a more exciting time, travelling half the world over in the midst of raiders and U-boats that no longer respected the sign of the Red Cross.