Pioneering a new trade - Lance Melbourne recalls his time aboard the steamship Trangie, during her pioneering livestock trading days across the Pacific in the 1960s. / Coasting Ile de Moorea.

Toward the end of 1963 the Belfast registered Australian manned steam ship Trangie (named after the western NSW town) ex-Eros finally departed Pyrmont for Mexico.
Having laid at east Circular Quay for several months, the fit out of sheep pens below and on deck were complete.
A consortium of graziers engaging in a venture with “every optimism of success” together with a spirit of co-operation prevailed among the crew to make the enterprise work.
Formally a fruit carrier and carrying a few passengers, Eros (also the Duke of Windsor on several occasions) had plied within the Caribbean and to US ports.
On board were 19,500 unshorn sheep for transportation to the west coast port of Manzanilla, Mexico. The outbound voyage made calls at Suva (Fiji) to water, Pago Pago (Western Samoa) water/repairs then Honolulu for medical/water.
At the time of arrival off Oahu, some three weeks after departure, the trampled and decaying sheep carcasses were countable only by their heads for insurance purposes then dispatched overboard to our predator escort.
The ABs became farm hands as the few stockmen we had could not cope; 500 skulls tallied from Hold 3 in one afternoon. The hungry sheep would chew the plastic floats on the water troughs causing flooding of pens, trunkways and No.1 hold as the rose boxes were clogged with wool unable to be pumped. This foul mixture was required to be hoisted out.
At night, when the pink champagne flowed from the former owner’s bond, the cabins of the captain and the company director were targets for ‘barr-ing’ new born lambs.
A few days out of Oahu a stockman spiked his foot. When informed, the Honolulu authorities dispatched a four-engine aircraft to parachute anti-tetanus venin on to the bridge wing.
No shore leave was given at arrival in Honolulu and an armed guard was stationed at the gangway just by the Aloha Tower where the ship tied up. Notes were dropped ashore informing the waiting press the numbers of sheep lost at this point of the voyage.
Arriving at Manzanilla the stock was offloaded as planned to a Senor Delfino.
Here the captain announced the banks in this minor fishing port could not cover the pay advances for the crew. An alarming circumstance demanding a show of force and all hands smartly assembled on the boat deck to persuade a favourable resolution to the dispute. Pesos were soon provided but not before the local labour discontinued discharge of the waste cargo for if the ship’s crew weren’t paid why then should they, said our Spanish steward.
Only view of the Trangie berthed at Suva.Cantina Del la Rosa, staffed by Columbian Senoritas, accommodated and refreshed those who involved themselves in the ambience of South American culture along with the acquaintance of a major screen actor who frequented and was game fishing there.
Returning light ship (ie no return cargo) westward across the Pacific to Suva and Sydney, the ABs were employed full-time gear flying, hatches open discharging the hold waste overboard which was infested with every manner of tropical bacteria/flies.
For the second voyage all the stock had been shorn prior to boarding.
Arriving at Suva the Australian Seaman’s Union members had to resist a Fijian ‘takeover’ crew assembled on the port wharf by the company for that purpose.
Trade of sorts began with the local people in anything mutually tradable. In the ‘other’ trade, alert ladies favoured the silver pesos believing them to be as valuable as US silver $s … or so they were told.
Continuing eastward across the Pacific it became apparent there was insufficient fodder for many of the sheep to make the destination, so a call to the French Polynesian port of Papeete, Tahiti was determined.
Tahiti’s sister, Ile de Moorea rose gradually from a clear horizon, her volcanic peaks adorned with a diadem of cloud. The valleys lush and fertile release, here and there, cascades of silver glimpsed amid the verdure then lost to the valley floor. Sharp ridges descend to the thickly wooded plain as we approached and coasted the reef. Groves of breadfruit trees and palm plantations bowed to the south easterly trade. The unforgiving coral reef enclosing calmer water of varying shades of indigo to emerald in the shallows.
Yacht quay at Papeete. / Newspaper cutting 1964.The whole presents to the observer a most delightful prospect of nature, a mere description being inadequate as a panorama such as this may best be imagined.
The Captain, ever pleased with unhappy news, instructed no shore leave was possible after coming to anchor in Baie de Papeete that evening. The calm scented air, heavy with the perfume of Tiare (Gardenia Taitensis) invited the crew to be prepared for anything.
Having in mind that great privations give a value to the simplest pleasures, a number of crew and stockman went determinedly down the poop Jacob’s ladder for the swim to the beach.
An AB hastily arriving there, by this time dark, returned to the anchorage by outrigger; collecting and transporting struggling swimmers, among whom were two in life vests, to shore and on to the hospitable hostesses of Quinn’s Tea Rooms, the lascivious Tamure and later La Fayette. The wahines there demonstrate a primitive charm and ‘les dermis’ are an ornament to woman kind.
Next morning the ship came alongside to bunker/water/store with a much reduced crew.
The missing were logged two days pay, while the town gendarmerie held two for commandeering a local motor launch, meanwhile our senior mate was promised dismissal. At departure time several of our people needed to be encouraged to return aboard.
Our veterinarian settled on Indochinese rice steamed in 44 gallon drums before feeding the sheep as the raw rice, first feed, had swelled their stomachs to death.
Fewer animals were lost on this and the following voyage.
On the fifth journey the ship was manned by a Fijian crew, and so closed the final voyage of Trangie, this pioneering livestock trade and a farewell to foreign liaisons of an uncommon sort.
The ancient Caribbean banana carrier laid up in Sydney, on view at Blues Point for near 12 months, before towage to the inevitable breakers.