We even had Fijiian phone operators onboard. It was, of course, all big local news. In all, we spent 500,000. Amazingly, it was completed on time. In all, this experience reinforced my huge admiration for US-built ships.
Pictures above are of the workers repairing the ship in Fiji after the fire.
However the Australian run was finally hit, if far later than most other liner trades, by the invasion of the jets. In November 1977, the Australis made the last Chandris sailing from Southampton to Sydney and then went to a rather remote anchorage at Timaru in New Zealand. Rumours were that she could soon go to the ever-hungry Taiwanese scrappers. In May 1978, however, she returned to New York, which had been her former homeport under the United States Lines. After some minor dry-docking, she was renamed America in an attempt to capitalise on the glory and glamour of her earlier days.