Shipping

briefs

• There were no new develop ments in moves by Thomas Nation wide Transport Ltd. of Australia to acquire the Union Steamship Co., in January. TNT representatives met with P & O men in London for talks but there were no announcements.

Meanwhile USS has its South Pacific service under review. Concerned about the lessening return loads for its ships, because of a drop in the Islands banana crop, USS is faced

with either cutting back its services or switching to modern, unitised ships. To rub salt into USS wounds, the Tofua sailed from Auckland at December’s end, several hundred tons short of what she expected to load. • The Port Moresby wharf, damaged when hit by the Malaysia on August 14, has been repaired and again can take two ships. More than 100 feet of the wharf had to be re paired ( PIM , Dec., p. 95), and while that part of the wharf was out of commission, supply ships to Port Moresby from Australia were subject to some costly delays. • Critics of MILI’s rates and

services were in December invited to write about their complaints to the Micronesia Water Transportation Review Board, which is holding a prehearing conference to examine these complaints in January. The meeting will vet them and submit any important ones to a full review board on February 3. • The Jacques del Mar 11, sold by Societe Maritime Caledonienne, Noumea, to John Manners and Co. (Aust.) Pty. Ltd., has not vanished entirely from the Pacific scene. Re named the Isobel, she will be used for charter work all over the world, in cluding the Pacific. She was last on the Sydney-Lord Howe-Norfolk-Noumea route, and before that was the BP’s ship, Malekula. • Latest Soviet ship to anchor in Caledonian waters is the Akademik Korolev, which visited Noumea in December, One of the world’s most modern scientific vessels, the Russian ship with its crew of 133 men and women, was on a voyage of Pacific research, [ts route is scheduled to include NZ, Pahiti and across to Canada before eturning to Vladivostock. The ikademik Korolev was reported as mdertaking important atmospheric esearch related to Soviet space

activities, as well as studies of ocean currents in the tropics. • The George Anson, in February, and the Francis Drake, in March, will sail to Hong Kong where they will fly paying-off flags. Both ships will be laid up there and offered for sale.

These passenger-cargo chips, operated by H. C. Sleigh Ltd., have been on the Australia-Guam-Far East run for a number of years ( PIM, Jan., p. 88).

So far H. C. Sleigh Ltd. has given no public indication of replacements for these ships, although replacements are thought to be under consideration. • Tahiti and Lae, New Guinea, will be two new ports for P & O during this year’s round of 33 cruises, which will carry an estimated 50,000 people into the South Pacific and SE Asia. • Two new 25,000 ton luxury liners to cruise the South Pacific are being built in Italy for Sitmar Cruises, a subsidiary of Sitmar Lines. Sitmar hopes to have them in operation by the end of 1971. Meanwhile Sitmar Line’s Fair Sky was due to call for the first time at Vavau in the Tonga group in early January. The 1,200 passengers on board are being offered an “unspoilt” Polynesian village fNeiafu) at which they would be offered feasting, dancing, picnics.

harbour trips and, of course, sale of handicrafts. • The Erwin Schroeder, chartered by Messageries Maritimes to carry cargo between Fiji, Australia, New Caledonia and the New Hebrides ( PIM, Jan., p. 85) was due to make her first visit to Suva early in February, carrying more than 3,000 tons of gypsum for a cement factory.

An MM spokesman said in January the vessel would later be replaced by another. Carpenters had been appoint ed the company’s Suva representatives. • Former Cunard liner, Queen Elizabeth, re-named Seawise Univer sity, may put into Suva during a series of cruises carrying university students. Her new owner, the C. Y.

Tung shipping group of Hong Kong, is to overhaul her in Hong Kong.

Then she will become available for a series of cruises, the first in Sep tember, on which US university students will be carried.