SHORT OF FOOD

Grey River Argus, 13 March 1940, Page 11

SHORT OF FOOD

UNION COY; STEAMER. ROUGH PACIFIC VOYAGE. AUCKLAND, March 11. After exhausting the last of hei’ emergency food stores at breakfast as she approached Auckland to-day, a 300-ton Union Company cargo steamer berthed early this afternoon after an eventual 32-day return voyage from New Zealand to a Pacific island. An 11-day wait off an unworkable roadstead was endured, and the I vessel encountered the full force of a | cyclonic storm for four days in the i Tasman Sea. When the ship was three days out of port, her electric refrigerator, containing all her perishable provisions, failed. All' these foodstuffs had to be dumped into the sea and tinned food became the "staple article of diet for the voyage through the Pacific.

Hopes for immediate replenishment of the food stores at the island were deferred when it was found that the weather made it impossible to work the roadstead. The island could not be approached by sea for about 1G days last month, because of the weather, and for 11 of these days the cargo steamer cruised in the vicinity, awaiting an opportunity to begin loading. When cargo was being loaded, meat and ice were provided from the island and for some time the crew lived as usual. When this supply became exhausted tinned food again came into general use.