From A Famine

Bsip Shipping:

To A Feast!

From a Honiara Correspondent I It is not so many years age that the Solomons were t virtual back-wash on oversea .

shipping routes. Apart frorr

the regular calls of Bum

Philp’s vessels from Australia

and Bank Line ships undei contract to deliver the Solo* mons’ copra to the Ministry of Food, overseas vessels were just about non-existent if Honiara. 11TELL, not now. The position nc T? is becoming almost embarras ing!

The Australia-West Pac i f: vessels were first into the field wi: a regular service from Hongkoi transhipping English goods.

The Australia-New Guinea Lii commenced a service in opposite to Burns Philp; and then the Chii Navigation Company, with a servii from Hongkong, halved cargo available to the Australia-We Pacific vessels.

Australia-West Pacific may ha, a slight advantage because quarter calls are made at Vanikoro to li Kauri Timber Company logs for tl Australian market. Small quantitii of scrap and copra are sometimi available for back-loading; althoug a chartered vessel usually appea on the scene for these special coi signments.

"Not Much Cargo"

Most recent development was tl announcement that the Nederlau and the Rotterdamsche-Lloyd Lin would operate an experiment) monthly service direct from the U via Panama. This service started August, and although the first vess carried a reasonable cargo, the Se;< tember sailing seemed almost matter of keeping face. Matarm brought only 20 tons of genen cargo, and booked no outward carg The Bank Line, perhaps wii thoughts of their copra contract the UK being jeopardised by tl; regular Dutch service, have no given notice that from next Januaj their vessels will accept genen cargo from UK and Continent) ports for direct service via Ne Guinea.

And on top of this comes tl; news that the Shell Company making preparations to enabl 18,000-ton tankers to discharge bui

off Point Cruz in the near e. ■haps this great increase in •ing to the Solomons has been ?ht about by the general ship slump throughout the world? ion here seems to be that at nt the Solomons will not be to maintain profitably two b services from the United lorn. /ertheless, everybody hopes that le Solomons develop with a , and timber export trade, Lg other things, that all ship lines may have sufficient in nent to continue regular ser and that even freight rates be reduced because of the etition. Recent freight increases 3 of 6 per cent, do not apply

E Bsip.

other point which bears con ation when assessing the pos nes of Honiara as a port is the led extension of the recently rue ted wharf and stub jetty to 3 which will enable large over vessels to come alongside.

Too Small

ere is a stub of only 30 ft for eas vessels at the moment, used onj unction with a mooring iin. The dolphin is at the right le picture above. The short h enables only one hatch to be 3d of the TvXagi, HP’s regular b Government would like to

extend the wharf to 300 ft, but this doesn’t look feasible, according to Mr. C. R. Elliott, senior partner in the firm of Coode and Partners, UK consulting engineers, who recently

visited Honiara to discuss the wharf situation with the Government.

After a survey he reported that an extension of the wharf to 180 ft looked feasible, but a longer length involved quite a lot of technical considerations.

To extend the wharf to 300 ft would give a depth of water at the northern end of more than 50 ft which would not be practicable using steel pilings.

Mr. Elliott is at the moment exam ining alternative wharf construction which may enable the job to be done. Honiara people are hoping he has some success.

The Government expects shortly to be able to earmark about £70,000 for wharf construction.

The new wharf at Honiara, with cargo sheds in the back ground. But ship ping can berth only on the narrow sec tion of the wharf at left-enabling only one hatch to be unloaded at a time directly on to the wharf. There are plans for the wharf to be ex tended in a line directly across the picture.