CAREENING A LINER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 88, 14 April 1938, Page 4

CAREENING A LINER

MONOWAI TO RECOMMISSION, TRIPLE SYDNEY SAILING ON APRIL 19. WELLINGTON, April 8. After being laid up in Evans Bay for seven months, the Union liner Monowai was brought in to No. 2 berth, Queen’s Wharf, to be got ready for her trip to Sydney with members of the Returned Soldiers’ Association. A large number of men are at present .engaged in overhauling and repainting the ship, which looked weather-beaten after her long spell of idleness, and in a day or two the Monowai will present once more the smart appearance customary with an intercolonial pas-

senger liner. During the time she was laid up a fairly heavy coating of mussels and marine growth accumulated for a depth of several feet below the ship’s water-line. To save the expense entailed in docking, this growth has been removed by careening the ship sufficiently lo expose the affected strakes of plating, which have been scrubbed and scraped clean and then repainted. The process of careening consists in listing the ship, by means of her water-ballast tanks, a sufficient number of degrees, first to port and then to starboard, to expose the growth on the shell-plating. The Awatea was similarly careened in Walsh Bay, Sydney, List month lo save docking and to clean marine growth from her sides. Careening of ships to remove barnacles and other growths was a common practice in sailing-ship days, especially before dry-docks came into general use along the trade routes of the world.

The Union liner Maunganui, which arrived at Wellington yesterday, has completed her summer running in the Melbourne service, in which she is being replaced by the Waitaki. The Maunganui is being paid off and will then be got ready to carry returned soldiers to Sydney. Tuesday, April 19, will be a memorable day on the Wellington waterfront, with the departure of three liners for Sydney. The Awatea is scheduled to leave that day with 500odd passengers for Sydney and the Monowai and Maunganui will sail in company carrying between them some 1300 returned soldiers.