Old Ship

Old tars of South Shields, England's coal-exporting town that slumps at the mouth of the River Tyne, were excited last month as word flashed through local labor exchanges that Tynemouths Ltd., shipping contractors, wanted unemployed seamen for a special job. Last week, under the command of John W. Sinks, Cunard White Star captain, retired in 1934 after 35 years of service, the 65 seamen picked in South Shields emerged from third class of the liner Berengaria in Manhattan. Their "special job''--with the help of 40 Canadians and 40 U. S. engineers and fire-men--was to take the famed Leviathan on her 301st and last sea voyage.

Many were the Leviathans final indignities. The two masts that once reached for the sky were bobbed 78 ft. to fit them under the Firth of Forth Bridge's 150-ft. arch. Ten feet were lopped off each of her three funnels--the debris, good scrap, lashed to the deck for the voyage. While reporters tramped through three years of dust on a last inspection trip, careless blacksmiths started a small fire. Someone had recently stolen two big paintings. Then her imported seamen began negotiating for the same wage as the U. S. crew, delayed her last departure from day to day.

Steaming at 15 knots the Leviathan will make a ten-day non-stop voyage to the 1,500-acre naval base off the little village of Rosyth to be scrapped. Sole passenger will be an auctioneer, housed in the Imperial Suite, listing her furnishings for public sale. Costing, with repairs and rebuilding, over $30,000,000, the Leviathan was sold to Sheffield and Glasgow metal firms for $732,000, plus an estimated $40,000 for the journey to the scrap yard. At the helm of a big ship for the last time, Captain Binks lamented: "I know ships of her type do not pay these days, with such vessels as the Normandie and the Queen Mary and other new ships. But I do feel sad to realize their day is gone, because my day has gone, too."

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