House-Keeping Aboard

Ship

FOR those who can spare the time, a pleasure-cruise on a well-found ship provides the ideal holiday. One travels in luxury, various sports, bathing and dancing can be enjoyed on board, and there are interesting trips ashore.

Passengers have often remarked on the good condition and spotless cleanliness maintained aboard; some have also said that they have never seen the sailors working.

Cleaning a ship and keeping her clean means a great deal of careful planning and hard work; this is particularly the case with the liners employed in ocean cruising.

The Chief Officer is responsible for the general maintenance and smartness of the ship, as far as the deck is con cerned. The Boatswain and his mates supervise the actual working. With the large amount of work to be done there is no time to waste, and a regular routine has been carefully planned out ahead to cover the entire voyage. Wind, weather and the vagaries of passengers must all be taken into consideration, but the ship’s reputation for smartness must be upheld.

In the early hours of the morning, from about two until six, the ship is the scene of a co-ordinated rush in which every man gets his job and has to carry

it out with mathematical precision. The decks are swept, litter and rubbish thrown overside, deck-chairs are folded and stacked away, and a general clear ance made for washing down. Paint work is cleaned, decks scrubbed with sand and hosed off, all surplus water being removed with rubber squeegees.

All this work is carried out quickly and

quietly without disturbing the sleeping

passengers.

The cleaning operations over, the decks are marked out again for the vari ous sports. Nets and screens are rigged for tennis, courts are prepared for shuffleboard and quoits, and deck-chairs

are replaced.

It is amazing how many odds and ends, handkerchiefs, wrist-watches, cam eras and occasional pieces of jewellery are found each night and turned in to the Purser’s office. Some passengers are very casual with their property.

Life-saving equipment is inspected

daily, boats, rafts and lifebuoys must be ready for any emergency. A large pro portion of the crew are constantly on duty, while the remainder are available at very short notice.

A Sydney resident who tried to take a New Guinea parrot into Australia without notifying the Customs officers was fined £5/2/-. Australia is en deavouring to keep out a parrot-disease which attacks humans. It has a name that apparently was coined by a parrot— psittacosis.