INADEQUATE SHIPPING

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 64, 13 April 1945, Page 5

INADEQUATE SHIPPING

BACK-LOADING TO AUCKLAND

SERIOUS CONGESTION RESULTS

The serious congestion which was taking place at Whakatane } in connection with accumulated cargo which should be returned to Auckland by the shipping syrvice, was the subject of a discussion at the meeting of the Harbour Board last Friday. It was decided that by way of overcoming the problem the Northern Steamship Company should be asked to speed up the service by putting on one extra boat a fortnight.

The matter was introduced by a letter from Messrs. Brabant Bros.

Ltd., who requested the Board help to expedite the passage of empty, drums to Auckland.

"Apparently the bottle-neck is the shipping" and at present the wharf is jammed with empties" ran the letter. "This position has obtained for some weeks past and is getting steadily worse. In consequence of large numbers of empty drums being left behind by the Northern Steamship Co. s orders of full drums have been repeatedly cut down. This means making special trips to Rotorua to make up the deficiencies and at a considerable cost to the Company. It was estimated that at the 16th March the total number of drums awaiting shipment was not less than 1200. Should such a state of affairs continue, there is a possibility of the Oil Companies finding other means of getting their products to Whakatane with a subsequent loss of revenue to the board."

The clerk reported that a copy of Messrs. Brabant Bros, letter had been forwarded on to the Northern Steamship Co. who in. reply stated that the company's difficulty was that when the boat was loaded for Whakatane . there, were usually a number of benzine drums in the hold as well as on deck, then when she returned from Whakatane these drums, because of the butter being in the hold could not be put in the same compartment and had to be put on deck. Before the war when the company had two boats, running to Whakatane and when there was much more, cargo to handle, getting the empties back was no difficulty at all. Today the company had no s£>are boats and to send a boat empty from Auckland to Whakatane to bring a load of empty drums back would be a loss of anything up to £200 to the company that is if the company had the boat. The only way to deal with the position was whenever possible to send the Opotiki boat in to lift a full deck load. In the course of eight days 1000 drums had been lifted from Whakatane. The chairman (Mr W. R. Boon) said the Board had to agree that the war had been responsible in a large measure for the present position, and it appeared that all they could do was to 'keep at. the company' until something was done.

Mr Kent pointed out that . the weather was. often the deciding factor where deck cargo was concerned. When no deck cargo was car-: ried it was" not necessary to shelter in rough weather.

The Board decided to ask the Northern Company to consider returning the boat from Auckland more quickly so that an extra trip could be run once a fortnight.