New Ship To Replace

Laurabada

Prom Our Own Correspondent

Port Moresby, June 28.

THE Laurabada, which has battled around the Papuan and New Guinea coastline for more than two decades is now up for public tender.

The old lady is a sorry looking sight as it lies alongside the Port Moresby wharf.

In fact, the ship and the wharf are both in much the same state of disrepair; both are rotted through, and both due for re placement.

But there are a couple of very solid assets in the old ship, for it has two new engines which were installed only in 1949.

Some shipping men believe that the in stallation of these engines hastened the end of the Laurabada, They claim that the engines were too powerful for the general condition of the ship’s timbers, and were of the wrong type, necessitating the cutting away of a portion of the deck to accommodate the upper portion of the engines.

If an alternative type had been used there would have been no need to cut into the deck and disturb the balance of the ship.

Portions cut away from the timbers, however, showed them to be rotten to the stage of sponginess, and iron spiking had rusted to a thread that could be broken with the slightest pressure.

But engines or no engines, the “Laura bada” is up for tender, and the Adminis tration is looking around for a replace ment. There is one ship on offer at Syd ney, and another on the north coast of New South Wales where it is still under construction.

An official will be going South shortly to look over these prospects.