Pacific Shipping
pp. 93-99 · Read in the full issue
Will the Nauruans carry on cruising?
The entirely Nauru-owned shipping line, Nauru Pacific, has switched one of its vessels from cargo carrying with some passengers to luxury cruising, with acceptance of cargo only when it can be fitted in with strict cruise schedules.
The ship is the 9,336-ton Enna G, which has accommodation for 100 passengers in cabins of first class standard. It is one-class in operation, with air-conditioning throughout and all cabins have private facilities. The service is designated “South Pacific and Coral Sea Services”, and schedules of 12, 18 and 25 days based on Sydney are being offered.
Some ports which are not normally included on purely cruise itineraries are among those at_ which Enna G is to call. The first voyage included Honiara, Nauru, Santo, Vila, Suva, Apia and Pago Pago. Some other ports to be included from time to time are Nukualofa and Lautoka, while an off-port call is to be made on some voyages at Taveuni and Norfolk Island. Funafuti and Tarawa also appear on one schedule drawn up for a future cruise.
Fares for the round trips are based on daily charges of $24 to $35 per person, most berths being about $3O.
This provides a minimum fare of $432 for 18 days or $6OO for 25 days—not cheap for cruise fares, but good value in relation to the high standards of cabins and service. The facilities impressed parties of press men and the travel trade invited aboard the Enna G prior to her first cruise from Sydney in May.
Nauru Pacific is one of several lines participating in the grossly over-tonnaged Australia-Papua New Guinea freight route, and the re deployment of Enna G probably represents a prudent adjustment in the use of an asset that has eminent capability for such a move. The ship previously called at PNG ports as well as some of those now included in the cruises.
The new cruise programme still appears to be regarded by the Nauruans as something of an ex periment nevertheless, and shipping and travel trade circles are interested in seeing whether the Nauruans give it a fair trial and not decide later in the year to do something different.
Or worse, to begin making late changes to schedules to suit some whim of Nauru Government leaders who want the Enna G here instead of there.
To be successful at cruising, the Enna G has to be sold ahead; cruise passengers don’t go in for lucky dip scheduling. The short history of the Nauru line has been one of fluctuating schedules, with its ship’s officers hardly knowing at times which direction they should point the bow. But as the Nauru line has not been cruising, this has not been a matter of great importance to pas sengers.
The Enna G is a comfortable ship.
Its Tongan crew can turn on real Islands charm, and there is now a great opportunity for the Nauruan owners to show what Islanders run ning Islands ships can do for the tourist industry.
But now the decision has been made it should not be re-examined for another 12 months; and in the meantime part of Nauru’s consider able phosphate royalties should be well spent on a large scale pro motional campaign to make the new cruising known.
Nauru is still actively pursuing business for its freight services. The Enna G offers, through holding cargo in the vessel or by transhipment arranged cheaply at Honiara, inter connection between 11 Island ports
Nauru Pacific Lines "Enna G" at Walsh Bay in Sydney before setting out on the first of their "Carried Away Cruises" in May.
which may be served from Sydney and Newcastle.
Nauru Pacific continues its vigorous search for a worth-while share of the PNG trade with a monthly service by the chartered 8,400 dwt Hydra, from Melbourne, calling Sydney, Lae, Rabaul and Kieta, with alternate voyages including Burnie and Newcastle. Rosie D, 12,000 dwt, continues to serve PNG ports en route to Guam and the Philippines, while Eigamoiya, 5,700 dwt, provides a monthly turn round through Mel bourne, Sydney, Nauru, Tarawa and Majuro.
P. & 0. Retires Four
More Liners
The P & O Company’s shrinking fleet, which numbers among its 13 passenger vessels some of the oldest afloat, is to shrink still further with the withdrawal of another four ships from its passenger and cruise opera tions.
As was forecast in PIM in March, the 24,000-ton Chusan is to be beached. Others to go, the company has announced, are the Oronsay and the Orcades, both of 28,000 tons.
Iberia, which PIM reported in March was to be axed, will be in the market about the middle of the year. Orcades looks like going after next February and Chusan probably in her wake.
They are both in the programme until early 1973.
The date of Oronsay’s departure— or break-up—is still to' be announced.
Retrenchment is not confined to ships, however. There are some empty seats in P & O’s head offices in London and morale is taking a severe jolt as staff, from executives down wards, wonder whose head will roll next.
For the first time in 10 years, the passenger line service made a loss and it is believed that the company is considering the fate of its regular passenger service between Australia and the United Kingdom, a route which is being very much over shadowed by the airlines. Cheaper air fares may well spell “finis” to all passenger ships other than the cruise ships.
Tonga's Shipping
Co. Takes Over
The Tonga Shipping Agency, which handled all the kingdom’s government ships, ceased to exist on May 8 and a new organisation, the Pacific Navigation Company Ltd. officially came into being.
The Prime Minister, Prince Tuipe lehake, is chairman of the board of directors and fellow directors are the Minister of Finance, M. U. Tupou-
niua, Produce Board nominee Pousima Afeaki, the Copra Board nominee Alipate Tupouniua and Secretary to the Government Taniela Tufui. The company’s general manager is Cap tain Hills-Willis and the secretary and legal adviser Dr. R. K. Dixit, a maritime law expert.
The company has authorised capital of $2 million of which $1,094,000 has been subscribed.
Ships In Trouble
Around The Pacific
® Kwang Myung No. 79, the South Korean vessel grounded and damaged on Christmas Island in late March, was drydocked in Honolulu in early April.
She had been towed from Christ mas Island by the tug Mikioi.
Blades of the damaged vessel’s propellers were bent and the shafts possibly out of line. Damage to her bottom was believed to be extensive. ® Bernard, Norwegian motor vessel en route to Napier. New Zealand, with a cargo of phosphate rock from Ocean Island, put into Auckland for repairs to her engine room in mid- April.
A fire at sea damaged her engine room.
Rel To Put Third
Ship Into Service
Although some wiseacres shook their heads when Refrigerated Express Lines announced in January the start of a new Australia-PNG service using fast new ships, REL had no doubts at all about its success.
Others might think that the market offering on the route was depressed.
REL was sure the speed and modern handling equipment of its ships would attract business. And so it has turned out.
The Moresby Express has done so well that the second ship, Lae
P & O is getting rid of some of its liners, notably the "Oronsay" the "Orcades" and the Iberia" but is adding new ones. Pictured is the newest, the 17,000-ton cruise ship "Spirit of London" which, despite its name, was built in an Italian shipyard— British shipbuilders have probably priced themselves out of the market. Performing the launching ceremony at the end of April in a shipbuilding yard near Genoa is a genuine London Pearly Queen, Mrs. Beatrice Marriott. It is the first P & O liner to be designed specifically for short holiday cruises and will be based on America's West Coast in a year-round programme starting next January and sailing from Los Angeles and San Francisco to Mexico and Alaska.
Express, came into service on the Sydney-Brisbane-Lae run late in April, arriving in Lae on May 2.
Not only a second ship but a third ship is being chartered and will go into service on the Sydney-Brisbane- Kieta route in August. The ship is the Kieta Express.
REL told PIM that for the Easter weekend run, the Moresby Express was full to the Plimsoll line. The success of the service had persuaded the company to go ahead with the introduction of a third ship, a move which, earlier in the year, was only a probability.
Gilbertese Seamen
Are A 1 Anywhere
Set up at Betio, Tarawa, in 1967, the GEIC’s merchant marine training school is turning out so many qualified seamen that already there are more than 300 Gilbertese serving on ships all over the world.
By the end of 1971, the school on board the Teraaka had supplied sea men to 32 ships flying the German flag and recently the China Naviga tion Company reported on the ex cellent behaviour and seamanship of more than 60 Gilbertese serving on four of its ships, the Woosung and Wenchow, which operate a direct service between Japan and New Zealand, the Wanliu, which runs between Hong Kong and Australia, and the Eredine, which trades between India and Japan.
Two ex-Teraaka trainees, Tailoa Kofe and lafeta Paeniu, who are serving with China Navigation Co’s Kwangtung, have been promoted to officer/cadet status because of their progress as seamen and their potential as officers. The first Gilbertese with China Navigation to obtain his second mate’s certificate, Tito Tapun gao, is now in Wellington studying for his first mate’s certificate. With him are Tauaa Kaiteie and Koub were lenraoi, who are studying for their second mate’s certificate. Two others who have passed their examina tions for their second mate’s certifi cate, Tekura Muller and Tabea Riwata, are serving as third mates Tekura with the Kwangtung and Tabea with the Nanchang.
'Moana Roa'
Gets A Reprieve
So the old Islands ship Moana Roa has been reprieved. Her fate, which has been in the balance since it was discovered that she had put the NZ Government’s shipping finances in the red to the tune of $346,000, has been decided for the present. She will re main on the Cook Islands service and was scheduled to come off survey
and resume her voyaging towards the end of May.
It is likely, however, that her future, at least as a passenger carrier
between NZ and the Cooks, will be again under review when the new air port at Rarotonga is opened next year.
It may be that she will be com missioned in the Royal New Zealand Navy—surely a promotion! While she has been undergoing survey, navy experts have been taking a look at her, considering her suitability as a replacement for the RNZN survey ship Lachlan.
For the present, however, she will
Third Officer Tabea Rivata in the "Nanchang", who comes from the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, was given a
delayed presentation
to mark the gaining of his second mate's certificate last Dec ember. Third Officer Riwata, a graduate of the C.N.Co's marine training school at Tarawa is only the third Gilbert and Ellice Islander to become a ship's officer. Mr.
W. R. Cregg, a director of Swire & Gilchrist Pty. Ltd., general agents for C.N.Co. in Australia, presented Third Officer Riwata with a pair of binoculars to mark his achievement when the "Nanchang" berthed at Sydney in April.
The ship's master, Captain K. H. Nettle ship, was an interested onlooker.
continue to ply between the dominion and the Cooks, possibly losing more money, much to the annoyance of Premier Albert Henry of the Cooks, as operating losses have been listed as aid to the Cooks.
'Tends 7 Is Back
In Service
Conpac is keeping its fingers cros sed over the present performance of the Tenos, the 3,500 ton freighter which the company operates on the 18-day Lae to Sydney and Brisbane run.
On contract from the Swedish company of Transmarin, of Helsing borg, the Tenos, which was built in 1969, had been plagued with engine trouble from the end of February to the end of April. She has been in port for a month, at Sydney and then Brisbane, for an overhaul. Over heating of the bearings in the main engine was diagnosed.
She is now back on the run with the fault rectified, Conpac hopes.
While she was laid up the service
was maintained by the Antje Schulte and the Nordwelle, which were chartered for the job by Burns Philp, Conpac’s managing agents.
Westours Hope
For Year-Round Profit
She has a Scottish skipper, a Dutch, Indonesian and Fijian crew —and as a floating hotel, she’s much more fun than the very grand SS France could possibly be.
She’s the “people-sized” MV West Star, a sleek little vessel which has just completed her second ex perimental cruise season between Tahiti and Fiji. Unfortunately, both seasons resulted in a loss for the company—although Fiji, at least, benefited to the tune of some $200,000, in payment left behind for fuel and provisions.
During a recent visit to Suva, where the 250-passenger ship turns around and provisions, president of Seattle based Westours Inc., Mr. Chuck West announced plans for a third cruise season.
Two extra sailings will be added, giving a total of 16 11-day cruises between early Nov.—late April. This time, says Mr. West, the company expects a “breakthrough to profit ability”—and a clear indication of whether it should embark on year round cruising between Fiji and Tahiti.
During the 1971/72 season, the ship received a severe financial set back when she missed an entire round cruise, and underwent major electrical repairs in Suva. It cost the company an estimated $300,000. much of it left in the dominion.
The cruise itself, first established during the 1970/71 Christmas season, is excellent value for the US traveller (of the type Mr. West describes as a “mature executive”) prepared to spend around $l,OOO for his 16-day holiday.
MV West Star at Pago Pago. She's scheduled for two extra sailings during the 1972-73 cruise season. Photo: Alex Wendt.