In 1964, the Adelaide SS Co merged its interstate shipping fleet with that of with McIlwraith, McEacharn & Co, and Barossa was renamed Cronulla.

[8] There was a strong south-westerly wind, which drove the uncompleted ship about 3 nautical miles (6 km) down the Firth of Tay.

She also had a Bauer-Wach exhaust turbine, which drove the same propeller shaft via a Föttinger fluid coupling and double reduction gearing.

[11][16] Barossa successfully made her sea trials on 28 April, and two days later left Scotland for Australia[17] in ballast.

However, as she crossed the Indian Ocean, Barossa exchanged W/T signals with Applecross wireless station in Western Australia, at a distance of more than 3,000 miles (4,800 km).

One seaman claimed that when the ship was in Townsville, Queensland, a non-union man had entered his quarters and threatened to throw him into the sea.

At Port Pirie the tug Yacka retrieved clothing of crew members from under the wharf, including a pair of the fireman's trousers.

[22] Barossa was in Darwin, Northern Territory on 19 February, when hundreds of Japanese aircraft attacked the port and town.

[27][28] A report that the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) published in 1959, and republished in 1962, says she was towed into midstream, anchored, and left to burn herself out.

[34] Watersiders started unloading the steel products, and then on the evening of 13 January, they reached the pig iron in her Number 4 Hold.

Employers wanted to use tipper trucks to take the pig iron from the ship to a dumping area inside the dock gates, as this would be the most efficient form of transport.

[35] When the first load of pig iron was hoisted from Barossa and lowered toward a truck waiting on the quayside, a gang of 15 watersiders refused to handle it.

Barossa was scheduled to leave Brisbane on 18 January for Gladstone, but could not do so until her 980 tons of pig iron was discharged.

Otherwise, on 19 January the branch would hold a mass meeting, at which it would recommend that members vote for all 2,200 watersiders in the Port of Brisbane to go on strike.

[41] On the morning of 19 January the WWFA branch held its mass meeting at Brisbane Stadium, in defiance of the Waterside Employment Committee.

[43] On 20 January, two ships left Brisbane with part of their cargo still aboard, as the strike prevented them from completing unloading.

The WWFA's Federal Secretary, Jim Healey, said the Executive was willing to recommend an immediate return to work as long as the strikers' leave annual credits were not withdrawn.

[47] He told the mass meeting that Senator Bill Ashley, the Federal Minister of Shipping, would call a conference of unions within 14 days to discuss amendments to the Stevedoring Industry Act; and that employers had agreed not to revoke strikers' annual leave credits.

They said that in the voyage from Newcastle to Fremantle, they had to work so hard firing her furnaces, that some of them had lost 1⁄2 stone (3 kg) in weight.

She discharged her cargo in Fremantle, and on 10 October bunkered with 150 tons of Newcastle coal, ready to sail for Thevenard, South Australia.

Another ship required her berth in port, so on 11 October Barossa moved out and anchored in Gage Roads while the dispute continued.

[54] Meetings between the Adelaide SS Co and Ron Hurd, Secretary of the Fremantle branch of the Seamen's Union of Australia, failed to resolve the dispute.

[55] On 23 October, Hamilton Knight, a Commissioner of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, began a hearing into the dispute.

Her new Master, Captain FJ Silva, claimed that the coal in her bunkers was "a fair average sample" of that supplied to shipowners, and he would be happy to put to sea with it.

Chief Engineer Robertson would, "at his discretion", get the firemen to work whatever overtime was needed to remove the ash from the grates of her furnaces.

[60] This was the second such incident in three days, as on the evening of 26 May the liner Taiping had grounded for about five hours near the entrance to the channel to Cairns harbour.

[61] On 10 December 1951, Barossa completed loading a cargo of pig iron in Whyalla, but failed to sail because her firemen again complained about the quality of her coal.

[62] In September 1952, Barossa loaded 4,384 tons of coal in Newcastle to take supply South Australian Railways at Port Augusta.

By 17 October a commissioner from the Industrial Relations Commission three times found the dispute unjustified; and the Seamen's Union's President, Reg Franklin, and the Secretary of its Sydney branch, a Mr Smith, had reached an agreement with the Adelaide SS Co.

[65] Commissioner Knight said the coal was "satisfactory", and the Shipping and Transport Minister, George McLeay, said the delay "is part of the Communist tactics".