LINER'S AMATEUR CREW

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15548, 4 March 1914, Page 11

LINER'S AMATEUR CREW

RICH MEN IN STOKEHOLD.

OPAWA'S TRIP TO ENGLAND.

RECENT STRIKE RECALLED.

With an amateur crew of firemen and trimmers, the New Zealand Shipping Company's steamship Opawa arrived in London on January 20 from Wellington. The Opawa was the first overseas cargo-steamer to leave New Zealand during the recent strike. She carried a record shipment of butter, cheese, and meat.

I "We kept splendid time," said Mr. H. R. Hamilton, second officer of the Opawa, "and our 'gentlemen stokers' kept us going all the way at only a fraction of a knot below our regulation speed. At Wellington at the last moment sixteen firemen and trimmers refused to come on board. They were eventually persuaded, but refused to work and were 'anded again. Then we took on volunteers from among the special constables. They came on at a moment's notice, come of them with hardly any spare clothes.

" Some were sons of rich farmers anxious to get the boat off. One brought £300 with him to England. A few were Englishmen of means and education, and some are known as first-class passengers in the company's passenger boats. The others were farm hands.

"They were given special quarters in the boat and food better tlian that ordinarily given to the stokers; but they had to work. They were all fine, strong men, but they felt the strain in the tropics, though they stuck to it for the seven weeks' voyage. " At first the amateurs tried to keep clean, but they soon gave that up. When they left the ship here I heard one of the Englishmen, clad in the old clothes he had stoked in for seven weeks, say. ' Well, here goes for a Turkish bath and then a, decent hotel.' He brought all the possessions he could collect on board at the start in a piece of newspaper. "They are all getting their passages paid back to New Zealand, and £20 for firemen or £15 for trimmers."