SHIPPING ACTIVITY

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20887, 19 August 1939, Page 7

SHIPPING ACTIVITY

BIQ REPLACEMENT PROGRAMME VESSELS TO BE BROKEN UP (Offldil Wireless) LONDON. August 17 One of the largest replacement programmes ever undertaken by a passenger liner company, apart from the rebuilding of the merchant fleet after the Great War, has been completed by the Union Castle Company with the sale of the Dunluce Castle to the ship breakers. Within the past four years ships equivalent to about 73,000 tons grots have been sold for breaking up, and during the same period 189,000 tons* have been built. The management adopted the policy of ordering its vessels in pairs. The delivery in 1935 of two refrigerated motor-vessels was followed in 1930 by the commissioning of the mail liners Stirling Castle and Athlone Castle, of 25,500 tons each, and iu 1938 Hie Capetown Castle, of 27,00 u tons, was delivered. These three ships reduced the time for the Southampton-Capetown run by three days, to 13 i days, and this shortening of time has necessitated the equipment of the five existing vessels of about 20,990 tons gross each with new machinery. Since 1937 four more refrigerated moturvessels for the transport of fruit also have been delivered.