Blue Star's final appearance

By PAM GRAHAM

The distinctive red funnel and blue star of the Blue Star shipping line makes its final appearance in Auckland today, ending an era with poignant memories for people in New Zealand's maritime industry and for Pitcairn islanders.

P&O Nedlloyd, which bought Blue Star from England's Vestey family, is replacing the Blue Star container ships with huge vessels that carry three times the containers on fixed weekly timetables that do not include Pitcairn, the most isolated outpost of the old British Empire.

Blue Star's America Star, built in 1971 to carry 1334 standard-sized containers, calls at Auckland for the last time today.

It stopped at Pitcairn on its way south and the 46 descendants of the Bounty mutineers left on the island all went out for a final farewell.

"The Blue Star captains have been absolutely brilliant," said Leon Salt, the commissioner for the Office of the Governor of Pitcairn. The America Star, Queensland Star, Melbourne Star and Sydney Star have been calling regularly at the island for 25 years and strong bonds have been formed with the islanders.

"The Blue Star captains would call me by satellite phone from the other side of the Panama canal and ask if I had any excuse for them to stop at Pitcairn. Sometimes I'd only have the mail.

"I'd say 'there's only the mail' and they'd say 'that'll do' and they'd stop for two hours. They just could not go past."

The ships anchored offshore and unloaded cargo from containers on to aluminium longboats. It was a slow process for a typical delivery of four containers. Pitcairn has published stamps to mark the end of the service.

"For those in the maritime world it is a sad day," said Tim Wilson, director of the New Zealand Maritime School. Blue Star had a long history in New Zealand carrying refrigerated goods. Its ships were a training ground for many.

"An awful lot of people around the New Zealand industry have worked for them at one time or another.

"They were a tremendous company for training," he said.

Pitcairn's administrators are negotiating with shipping company Seatrade to service the island, but the service will not be as frequent.

Of the 35 ships calling at Pitcairn a year, 20 were Blue Star containerships. Shipping is the only way to and from the island.

"People on Pitcairn like to have a ship just before Christmas but that is going to be difficult," Salt said, because vessels servicing the island in the future will carry fruit, which is not transported across the Pacific at that time of the year. Passing ships will call for emergencies but getting people back to the island will be difficult.

The containerships being scrapped had accommodation for 12 passengers. The Seatrade vessels carry two passengers above crew capacity.

Meantime, another of P&O Nedlloyd's new fleet of ships which carry 4100 standard-sized containers, the Mairangi Bay, called at Auckland on its maiden voyage this week. They have produced record cargo movements at Ports of Auckland.