A Single-Day Overhaul
I've been told on several occasions that Caronia left her annual overhaul in Liverpool without having been repainted. During the 1959 overhaul, only one side of the ship had been painted due to a painters' strike. I have evidence that on one world-cruise, the ship also was repainted during her week's stay at Bombay.
It's beginning to look like ship painters’ strikes in Liverpool were quite commonplace, and this year it would be in Hong Kong where the job would be done.
Malcolm Pritchard,
a former AB Coxswain from Australia writes…
We left Liverpool in January 1963 without any new painting being done during the annual overhaul because
the painters were on strike. We attempted to paint her at each port we visited.
During our stay at Hong Kong, (I was a old hand there as I'd sailed in Blue Funnel Line), and looking back from the hill, I could see the Caronia covered in a web of bamboo from the water line right to her top. A few hours later, there was the great ship emerging in her new coat.
I can remember thinking to myself, if only I'd had a camera. I wonder if anyone has a photo of it? I'm also wondering how much it cost back then to have her painted in just one day. It would have taken at least 7 days back in Liverpool!
Malcolm makes the point about cost. I'm beginning to wonder whether Cunard really cared as to whether the “Green Goddess” was repainted back in the UK or not. Places like Bombay and Hong Kong for these quick makeovers were possibly deliberate choices.
The labour costs would be cheap and no doubt the working practices would be lax too. In India, despite all their protests of innocence, not much has changed in the interim by way of safeguarding their workers on ships, especially when it comes to demolishing them!
If you can contribute any information, do please get in touch…
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