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The Meaning of the “Awatea”
New Zealand's Queen Of The Sea.

(By “WAYFARER.”)

For a great many years I crossed the Tasman Sea four or six times each year. I have a nodding acquaintance with every persistent wave of that consistently argumentative stretch of water, and I mostly heard of the seas like glass that accompanied the last trip. The truth is that this is the most difficult type of sea-trip. It is not long enough to settle down either to make interesting acquaintances or avoid boring ones, and it is just long enough to make time hang heavy. Moreover, the weather is seldom good. It would seem impossible to evolve a means of transport that would convert this journey into a pleasure trip, but the “Awatea” furnishes the necessary miracle. Even a sailing made because of bad news would be enjoyable on this sea-going pleasure pavilion.

The title of this article has no relation to the controversy about what should be the exact translation of the musical Maori name. Translations are, in any case, mostly misleading. An idea which is the product of centuries of community living, tradition and ages of mutual experience, is almost impossible of exact translation to anyone outside. However, all races have built craft to sail the waters, and if there is an international brotherhood, it is the world-wide community of those who “go down to the sea in ships.” New Zealand, our island homeland, has been given a coast line, not only possessing extraordinary loveliness, but crowded with marvellous harbours. The morning after I saw the Awatea stroll perfunctorily to her berth, I saw the 23,371 ton giant Orion repeat the same easy going performance. The Queen Mary could be tied up to Wellington's Pipitea Wharf with the same facility. We have not one, but a number of enclosed waterways, anyone of which would accommodate the whole British fleet safely anchored. It is natural, therefore, that small and remote as we are, and remembering the stock from which we are sprung, that our country already has a maritime tradition which is respected the world over. This in no way detracts from the miracle wrought by our U.S.S. Company. At the outbreak of the Great War, its fleet actually ranked in the world's first half dozen, only beaten in England and Germany. It is not an out-of-the-way statement that the progress of this Dunedin-born shipping company has been an epitome of the best that is in us; a sign and symbol of our best inherited qualities. The culminating achievement is the great luxury liner the Awatea, and be reminded that she has been built for the special purpose of the journey between New Zealand and Australia. She is not, of course, the largest liner built by the company, but its first ship the Beautiful Star would sit comfortably in two-thirds of one side of her glass-enclosed promenade deck. Figures as to tonnage dimensions are of small real meaning to laymen, but she carries approximately six hundred passengers in two hundred and fifty cabins, and her service staff alone is one hundred and fifty. With the rest of the complement, she is a floating town of respectable population dimensions which on land would have a mayor, council, and town-hall and rates.

As to her speed, this “neck of the woods,” as New Zealand has been described, has in the Awatea the third fastest large passenger vessel in the British Empire, only exceeded by the Queen Mary and the Empress of Britain. By the way, if the list of vessels with her speed is made to include those of 6,000 tons, the Rangatira comes in, and we have in New Zealand two out of the twelve fatest large ships in the Empire.

“The last word” is a well-worn phrase, but as the proud escort who took me round said, “Things have been thought of since the Queen Mary, and this ship's later.” I know the pitying smile of the superior at the bare idea of coupling the Queen Mary with a steamer that runs to Sydney, but after my visit of exploration of this seagoing temple of luxury, I am ready to agree with the man in uniform. I intended, out of a fund of experience, to play the detective and endeavour to find some one thing that had been forgotten. I did not find it, and I was left in a maze of wonder at the ingenuity displayed in anticipating every possible want.

The tourist class lounge and smoke room on “A” deck seemed to me to be the maximum of comfort, ease, and variety of devices, capacious chesterfields and a well-stocked library. There was also a large glass-enclosed promenade deck.

The entrance is on this deck, with the office bureau, the telephone exchange, and the lift doors give the final hotel de luxe touch to this spacious lobby. Speaking of telephones, you can lie in bed and ring your home in Sydney or Auckland, yarn with anybody on board or order coffee at three in the morning. The telephone itself, by the way, will be of the tone of the state-room colouring, as will, by the way, be the thermos hot water bottle with which every cabin is fitted. There is no appearance of ship's cabin about these rooms. A goodly proportion have their page 73 own baths, the pretty bed coverings give the illusion of a luxurious home, the wardrobes have doors which automatically light the interiors when opened, there are tables, chairs, and all the comfort-bringing furnishings of a “best bedroom” in a modern mansion. The lighting, both in the stateroom, and throughout all the ship, is of concealed design, a quiet, silver glow, restful but efficient.

However, one has to find the promenade deck to see how the designers really can let themselves go. I am not going to go into detail about the fascinating variety of the inlays that decorate the walls of corridors and halls in the palace rooms. The world has been ransacked for decorative timbers of artistic grain. There are Black Bean, Macassan Ebony, walnut, ash, English oak and brown oak, Tasmanian silky oak, sycamore, walnut, Nigerian cherrywood, Sapeti mahogany, and many more, and someone had the wise thought to place a neat name strip on each nature-picture. The enormous lounge is in the centre of this deck, and I am unable to describe the aesthetic beauty and real comfort of its furnishings. The lacquered Gesso proscenium mask veils the cinema screen and above there is a highly ornamental balustrade which circles the gallery where the band plays. The library and writing room is perfectly equipped for the busy man, plenty of writing tables; and I was struck with a neat little tubular calendar device which lies immediately under the table-light. The music room is another serene place and the illusion of being in a great European hotel is heightened by the view through its windows of the observation balcony which rings the whole area. It is also fitted with individual tables and every device for making the hours go by. The sumptuous dance hall and the large smoke room, complete with bar, are on the same scale. But there is a further innovation worth reporting. This is the institution of separate clubrooms for men and women. I noticed in the male “hideaway” a clock which was ingeniously composed of a face of the brass studs which were used to ornament a baize green doorway. Clocks are everywhere; sixty-six of them all told. The boat deck is the next one up, with a cluster of de luxe cabins, and the gymnasium. The latter has an electric horse which trots, canters and gallops, a distance-measuring bicycle, and complete modern equipment. Above this again is the sports deck where in one well enclosure there are six full sized deck-tennis courts. On the three decks there seem to be acres of promenade space.

The dining saloon is amidships. It has new points, ample space between tables, wide range of seating sizes, mostly the handy quartettes. There are rolling screens to mask the port holes, and there is the same shining silver effect got from balcony railings and other fittings. I nosed into the cooking arrangements which are more than satisfying, including a magic device that only pours water out when it is at boiling point. There is a large dining saloon, too, for children. The galley and its suburbs seemed to me to be as large as the dining hall itself.

The fire prevention system is an object of pride, for this is the only ship in the world in which a sprinkler system operates in every part.

The stabilising devices and her general hull contours make her rock steady, so, having seen her, and seen the Tasman Sea, I am prepared to start all over again, making regular trips to Sydney, as long as I can make them on the Awatea.