Shipping Briefs

• The salvage vessel Onewa sent out a May Day message early on July 7 when a storm struck as the ship was near Vanikoro, BSIP. The skipper, Australian Bill Martin and his crew had to take to dinghies when the Onewa began to sink. They were picked up by a local ship, the Coo toola, taken to Vanikoro and later transferred to the New Hebridean ship, Konanda, which took them to Vila.

• Some shipping exporters from the South Island of New Zealand are unhappy about their links with Fiji and Samoa. Mr. H. E. Radley, chairman of the Pacific Shipping Committee, said recently that if a small, partly or fully refrigerated, ship provided a regular monthly service to Fiji and Samoa from the South Island, there almost certainly would be sufficient cargo for the return trip.

If the ship were not too big there would be sufficient cargo to fill it for eight months of the year. Mr.

Radley said that at present his company, which would, on a direct service, ship hundreds of tons of potatoes and onions to Fiji, was

allotted only a total of 20 tons for each monthly sailing of the Tofua and Taveuni. • Nauru Pacific Shipping Lines has chartered the Hydra, 8,400 tons, for 12 months for the Mel bourne-New Guinea run, on a five weekly service. She has not been scheduled beyond her first two trips, to Lae and Rabaul, because of un certainty over a waterfront dispute in Melbourne. In later trips calls at other than Lae and Rabaul will depend on inducement.

Meanwhile, Conpac Pacific’s Delos has been withdrawn from its six weekly service connecting Australian ports with Lae and Madang.