NEW LINER RANGITANE HAS UNDERGONE VERY SUCCESSFUL TRIALS

Wanganui Chronicle, 23 December 1949, Page 5

NEW LINER RANGITANE HAS UNDERGONE VERY SUCCESSFUL TRIALS

LONDON, Dec. 22 (Recd. 6 pm).— The New Zealand Shipping Company’s latest addition to its fleet, the 22,000ton Rangitane, is now berthed In the Royal Albert docks, London, after a highly successful testing ?6yage from the Clyde, where she was built. The Rangitane is lying close by her sister ship, the Rangitoto, which has just returned to London from her maiden voyage to New Zealand. The Rangitane leaves on her maiden voyage in 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 a year between Briatin and New Zealand. The Rangitane cost £2,0C0,000 to build and equip, and the owners frankly admit the task of earning interest and depreciation on so large a sum within the normal lifetime of the ship will be a difficult one. Like the Rangitoto, the Rangitane's passengers' accommodation is of one Mass. The fares vary according to the standard of cabin accommodation provided, but all passengers, irrespective of whether they occupy the most expensive or 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 Gorman raider, who is serving in her successor and namesake, is the purser, Mr. Edward Maughan. After the sinking of the Rangitane he spent five months at sea as a prisondr in the hold of the German raider and four and a-half years in a German prisoner-of-war camp.—Special N.Z.P.A. Correspondent.