IN A NOVEL TRADE

Taranaki Daily News, 6 September 1929, Page 12

IN A NOVEL TRADE

WHERE OLD VESSELS GO ATLANTIC MOTOR FERRIES. ARAWA AND THE MAMARI. Many steamers whose names are household words have come into the London-New Zealand trade, have ploughed their regular wakes across the Atlantic and Pacific for two or three decades, and then have vanished from our coasts. Other realms of usefulness still exist for numbers of the refrigerated vessels that have become too slow, too decrepit or too antiquated for a traffic that yearly demands higher speeds and greater facilities, but when they depart from their original routes very few of the old ships continue in the carriage of frozen produce. Some go East' and serve Japanese buyers profitably ere they at last “go west.” At least one of our biggest and best-known home liners is now a mother-ship and factory depot for a fleet of Atlantic whale-chasers, but quite a different fate has befallen two steamers that for years ■ ploughed out round “the Cape,” and Home via “the Horn.” All who are familiar with the Arawa and with the long-funnelled Mamari, which not so long ago crashed at full speed into an iceberg off Cape Horn, and. with bows stove in a good twenty feet,-struggled into Bahia Blanca for repairs. OLD-TIMERS REMODELLED. To-dav these two old stalwarts of the Shaw-Savill fleet are plying in a novel trade. Sold to foreign buyers, they have become the modern prototypes of the horse-boats which run regularly from Australia to the East, and neither externally nor internally would they be recognised as one-time participants in the New Zealand service. Refrigerating machinery and insulation have gone, holds havet been supplied, and all are fitted with innumerable stalls. The Arawa and the Mamari have become gigantic motor car ferries in the transcontinental ports. There is a huge export of American motors to Europe — so huge that the customary -crating and shipping methods with which we are familiar have been abandoned, and a new system has grown. CARS IN STALLS. From the American factories or assembly bases the cars are driven under their own power down to the docks, and on to special lifting platforms. With petrol tanks emptied the cars are swung into -the many-decked holds, pushed by hand into their respective stalls, and there made fast by ingenious clamping devices against the heave of the Atlantic. Loading and stowing uncrated cars is an expeditious process, but still more expeditious is the discharge of the thousands of automobiles carried across .the Western Ocean each trip. Out of the hatches comes an endless succession of cars, which are easily run on to the elevating platforms. Special gear quickly transfers the machines to the wharf, a small supply of petrol is run to each tank, and a body of drivers is kept busy from dawn to dark running America’s contributions to European transport problems off to their consignees. . The saving under this latest scheme of transport and delivery is obvious, even though the ear ready for the road may occupy no less space than the freighted one. Packing is an increasingly expensive process, and by doing without "it there must be a saving of from £5 to £8 per car, while loading and discharging times, most important to the shipmaster, are greatly reduced. Thus it is no surprise to learn that the new trade has proved a very profitable one to the far-seeing shipping people ■who had the enterprise to embark upon