Distressingly Costly

BSIP’s ‘Kovala’ is Distressingly Costly

A YEAR ago Captain D. M. R.

Maxwell and Mr. John Barley left Sydney with the Kovala for Honiara, in the Solomons. This un fortunate vessel appears to have got no further than Ballina, NSW, where recently she was being ex tensively rebuilt, again.

The Kovala, a 66ft. diesel vessel, was specially built for the British Solomon Islands Government by a Sydney firm. She was launched about four years ago and, in 1951, was undergoing trials in Sydney Harbour. It will be recalled that Kovala graced Sydney waterfront for some 3 years—except for one brief period when she started on her first attempt to reach Honiara, but turned back with engine trouble when some 300 miles out from Sydney.

Expert opinion is that the vessel was badly designed and that the al terations made to improve her, after her first abortive attempt to reach Honiara, have been unsatisfactory.

Two naval architects had a hand in her design and the cost to date is ;n to be at least £70,000 —probably more. Kovala promises to be f en ess useful and less economical than the former Fiji Government vessel Viti was in her heyday.

During June, the freighter Rigo letto called at Rabaul and Madang, NG, to take on a cargo of 5,500 tons of copra for shipment to Sweden.

This sale, made under an agree ment between the Australian Gov ernment and the British Ministry of Food, brought a return of £74 a ton sterling, at Territory ports.

U M. Rene Samourraud—who, un til recently, was the highly-esteemed chief of the Customs Department in French Oceania for six years— has returned to France, after a visit to New Zealand and Australia, with Madame Sabourraud. M, Sabourraud’s place was taken in Papeete by M. Rene Maurel.