NEW RANGITANE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27271, 23 December 1949, Page 5

NEW RANGITANE

HICHLY-SUCCESSFUL TESTS MAIDEN VOYAGE NEXT MONTH NZPA Special Correspondent Rec. 9 p.m. LONDON, Dec. 22. The New Zealand Shipping Company’s latest addition to its fleet, the 22,000-ton Rangitane, is now berthed in Royal Albert Docks. London, after a highly-successful testing voyage from the Clyde, where she was built. The Rangitane is lying close to her sister ship, the Rangitoto, which has just returned to London from her maiden voyage to New Zealand. The Rangitane will leave on her maiden voyage on January 27 carrying 400 passengers and about 12,000 tons of general freight. Like the Rangitoto, she is expected to complete about two and a-half round voyages each year between Britain and New Zealand. • The Rangitane cost £2,000,000 to build and equip, and the owners frankly admit that the task of earning interest and depreciation on so large a sum within the normal lifetime of a ship will be a difficult one Like the Rangitoto, the Rangitane’s passenger accommodation 'is of oneclass. The fares vary according to the standard of cabin accommo'&qtion provided, but all passengers, irrespective of whether they occupy the most expensive or the cheapest cabins, will share the ship’s public rooms. An officer of the earlier Rangitane. which was sunk off the New Zealand coast in November, 1940, by a German raider,, who is serving in her successor and namesake, is the purser, Mr Edward Maugham. After the sinking of the Rangitane he spent five months at sea as a prisoner in the hold of the German raider and four years and ahalf in a German prisoner-of-war camp. • ,