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Author Topic: Old Merchant Ships  (Read 39658 times)

Bryan Young

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Old Merchant Ships
« on: November 24, 2011, 03:25:56 pm »

Old  Merchant Ships.
I’m hoping to begin a new topic here.
Many years ago I was given a bagful of photos of old ships. No details provided.
Over the years I’ve dipped into them and got a couple of basics…Ships name, date of birth and parentage ….and that’s about it. Then I began classifying them by Company. So I begin with “A” for “Anchor Line” etc.etc.
The main reason for all this is to recall how beautiful some of these British designed and built ships were. Not like today when all the ships look basically the same and haven’t a curved line between them.
Many of the ships sort of follow a family pattern (Blue Flue is the prime example). So if I can get the site system working, I hope you enjoy what could be a rather lengthy topic. B.Y.
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wartsilaone

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #1 on: November 24, 2011, 03:37:19 pm »

Hi Bryan. These certainly are beautiful ships, A bit before my time and not really what I'm in to unless it's a ferry :}
However I'll definitely check in because you never know what might turn up.

Ali.
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Colin Bishop

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #2 on: November 24, 2011, 03:53:47 pm »

If you are interested in this subject then check out the paintings of Robert Lloyd. http://www.robertlloyd.co.uk/gallery.html

Although he also paints modern vessels, he has published two quite stunning books:
The British Merchant Navy - Images and Experiences http://www.ianallanpublishing.com/the-british-merchant-navy-images-and-experiences-paintings-by-robert-lloyd.html
The World's Merchant Ships - Images and Impressions http://shipsinfocus.com/view_book.php?ref=F480

Colin
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Bryan Young

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #3 on: November 24, 2011, 04:03:09 pm »

If you are interested in this subject then check out the paintings of Robert Lloyd. http://www.robertlloyd.co.uk/gallery.html

Although he also paints modern vessels, he has published two quite stunning books:
The British Merchant Navy - Images and Experiences http://www.ianallanpublishing.com/the-british-merchant-navy-images-and-experiences-paintings-by-robert-lloyd.html
The World's Merchant Ships - Images and Impressions http://shipsinfocus.com/view_book.php?ref=F480

Colin
Thanks Colin. I haven't a clue where and by whom these photos came, but I hope viewers find them interesting anyway.
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Bryan Young

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #4 on: November 24, 2011, 04:06:03 pm »

Bank Line and Blue Funnel (Ocean Steam).
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Colin Bishop

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #5 on: November 24, 2011, 04:14:07 pm »

The Aerial ones would appear to be by SkyFotos (Now Photo Flite) see image of Antilochus here: http://www.fotoflite.com/index.php?page=shop.browse&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=20

Colin
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Bryan Young

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #6 on: November 24, 2011, 04:41:02 pm »

The Aerial ones would appear to be by SkyFotos (Now Photo Flite) see image of Antilochus here: http://www.fotoflite.com/index.php?page=shop.browse&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=20

Colin
Colin, are you telling me that I may be inadvertently contravening the Copyright Law?  If that's so, then I'll pull the topic. Bryan.
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Colin Bishop

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #7 on: November 24, 2011, 04:55:42 pm »

Brian,

They are clearly commercial photos, no doubt purchased legitimately so it's a grey area. I suppose it depends whether they are still being offered for commercial sale as the one I have mentioned is. However you are not reproducing them at high resolution and not seeking to make money from them quite apart from the fact that it is unlikely anyone will notice. The worst that is likely to happen is that Martin could be asked to remove them so I wouldn't worry too much.

Colin
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Bryan Young

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #8 on: November 24, 2011, 07:09:38 pm »

Brian,

They are clearly commercial photos, no doubt purchased legitimately so it's a grey area. I suppose it depends whether they are still being offered for commercial sale as the one I have mentioned is. However you are not reproducing them at high resolution and not seeking to make money from them quite apart from the fact that it is unlikely anyone will notice. The worst that is likely to happen is that Martin could be asked to remove them so I wouldn't worry too much.

Colin
Wow! That's a relief.
It did strike me as odd that some photos over 100 years old....but the majority being over 50 yrs old, would still be subject to copyright law. However....my main reason for posting these pictures is to illustrate to people who perhaps have never known what a beautiful object an old ship could be. Thanks. BY
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Bryan Young

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #9 on: November 24, 2011, 10:16:41 pm »

I may as well continue until there's a heavy knock on my door.
British India. What a wealth of ships they had.
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Colin Bishop

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #10 on: November 24, 2011, 10:31:36 pm »

They did build some beautiful ships in the post WW2 period. Modern but graceful with it and a delight to the eye. These days I don't think there is a curved plate anywhere.

Colin
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Peter Fitness

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #11 on: November 24, 2011, 10:37:47 pm »

They did build some beautiful ships in the post WW2 period. Modern but graceful with it and a delight to the eye.

I agree wholeheartedly, Colin, beautiful ships indeed. Thanks for posting the photos, Bryan.

Peter.
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Norseman

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #12 on: November 25, 2011, 12:45:38 am »

More images the merrier Bryan :-))

I was only sayiing earlier today that modellers as a group must hold one of the largest archives of subject knowledge in the world; unless it is shared an individuals part is eventually lost.

Regards Dave (still looking for an image of the Foundation Franklin when she was The Gustavo Ipland {:-{)
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Bryan Young

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #13 on: November 25, 2011, 01:12:59 pm »

Caledonia Star. Built for the Ministry of War Transport, although she doesn’t look like any of the “standardised” designs of the time. 6 hatches..not all that common, but the 2 centre ones look unusual being at different deck levels.
Geelong Star. Instantly recognizable as an ex-Lamport and Holt vessel. They had a fair number of strange looking ships. The combined Bridge and Funnel still looks odd. South American Saint Line also used this idea, but were more streamlined.
Brasil Star. Sister ship of the Uruguay Star. Also carried 60 passengers, of which I was one when going to Brazil to join c/s “Norseman” in 1961/2.
Auckland Star. A real “heavyweight” on deck. 7 hatches, many with 4 derricks per hatch…each having its own winch. The deck crew and engineers would certainly be kept busy on this one.

A couple of tales about Blue Star. After one of their ships had a major collision (with an island) the owners (the Vestey family) blamed the loss on the use of radar. It took many years before they began fitting radars again.
Also, for many years the officers cabins didn’t have washbasins on the grounds that the officers would just use them as urinals.

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Bryan Young

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #14 on: November 25, 2011, 02:33:41 pm »

Clan Line.
A huge outfit with many subsidiary companies under the Cayzer Irvine banner, the ships swapping around a fair amount. It was a purely personal thing, but I always thought Clan Line to be in the 2nd division of the major companies. There always seemed to be something slightly “scruffy” about the ships when comparing them with,say, Blue Funnel.
Clan Cameron. Note the large plates (instead of pillars) at the rear end of the bridge. I can only assume that these were to prevent any cargo being swung into an area that may have people around. Also, what appears to be a cowl vent on top of the middle mast…never saw one there before!.
Clan Maclay. As a “deckie” I don’t think I’d be enthusiastic about those open ladders going up to the top of the “goalposts”!
Clan Shaw. This class of ship must have been a bit of a money spinner for the Greenock yard. Quite a few companies had them..or variations of them.
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Bryan Young

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #15 on: November 25, 2011, 03:39:06 pm »

Cunard and Donaldsons.
Both these outfits were mainly N.Atlantic traders. Donaldsons were apparently a well respected company among seafarers, but didn’t last the distance.
Cunard on the other hand are best known for their passenger liners. Unfortunately they were also pretty well known for their habit of “getting rid of” almost entire crews when a liner was taken out of service/scrapped. Non-seafarers may not be aware that Cunard also had a pretty comprehensive fleet of cargo ships. Only 2 of which I show here. And ploughing the N.Atlantic must have been both wearisome and boring. I preferred going to warmer climes.
Alsatia….originally built for the “Silver Line”. A pretty well known company that must have had some grandiose ideas when they built this thing!
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Tankerman

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #16 on: November 25, 2011, 04:43:31 pm »

Bryan, I am really enjoying your gallery of beautiful ships. I was lucky enough to be in the Merchant Navy during the 60's and always loved the sight of the many British ships to be seen in all the ports around the world proudly flying the "Red Duster" - great days indeed.

Chris
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thelegos

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #17 on: November 25, 2011, 05:21:31 pm »

Superb photo's, I particularly like Blue Funnel 'Phemius' but they all have style and charter. I can't believe the age of some, they seem timeless to me !!

Roger
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Bryan Young

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #18 on: November 25, 2011, 05:58:18 pm »

On to the “Es”.
Starting with Elder Dempster. Yet another major company that’s bit the dust.
Running mainly out of Liverpool, their area of trade was Africa. Usually the West coast.
A very highly regarded company within the nautical fraternity. I nearly joined them as a cadet….but didn’t because I didn’t really want to spend a lifetime going up African creeks into the boondocks of Africa. Instead, I joined the Ben Line….and spent 4 years going up and down creeks into the boondocks of the Far East. Ah, well. Can’t win them all.
Eds had 2 well known passenger ships….”Aureol” and “Apapa”….but I’m concentrating on the cargo ships in this thread.
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MikeK

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #19 on: November 26, 2011, 08:54:14 am »

Some great photos from the days we had a Merchant Navy ! Thanks Bryan.
That anecdote about the lack of washbasins in Blue Star is not original though, when I joined the "Thistledowne" in 1962 she also was lacking a basin in the cabin - everything else, mirror, shelf etc was there, but no basin - I was told the exact same story except it was attributed to the Alan Black Chairman. Unless of course they may have been drinking buddies !

Mike
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Bryan Young

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #20 on: November 26, 2011, 10:20:37 am »

Some great photos from the days we had a Merchant Navy ! Thanks Bryan.
That anecdote about the lack of washbasins in Blue Star is not original though, when I joined the "Thistledowne" in 1962 she also was lacking a basin in the cabin - everything else, mirror, shelf etc was there, but no basin - I was told the exact same story except it was attributed to the Alan Black Chairman. Unless of course they may have been drinking buddies !

Mike
Mike, as I expect that there was much truth in the uses to which said basin could be put I expect more than 2 companies followed suit! May as well refuse to fit showers for the same reason......... Bryan.
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Bryan Young

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #21 on: November 26, 2011, 12:02:05 pm »

Now we come to “Ellermans”.
It really is difficult to understand how such a huge shipping company could just more or less disappear overnight. Ellermans weren’t just one entity. There were all sorts of Ellermans. All under the same funnel colour and rather homogenous. Some had grey hulls, some white, some green. But the same funnel.
You would see an Ellemans ship in just about any port in the world during the mid 1950s to the late 60s (even 70s I suppose). Not often in the Orient though. Blue Flue, Ben Line, P&O and BI kind of had that market sewn up. But Ellemans weren’t a “Tramp” outfit. They were Cargo Liners, which meant that the various elements of Ellermans traded on specific routes (albeit with the odd excursion..like everybody else did). So they had a fleet that traded to the Med, another to NZ and Aussieland, a big run to South Africa and so on. Some of their fleets were of quite small ships (4000 tons or so) but the long haul stuff equated with the ships of Blue Star and so on.
One class of their ships has always struck me as being one (actually 4 of them) of the most beautiful and purposeful looking merchant ships of all time. I refer to the City of York class…a pic of her eventually.
But let’s look at a random selection of what they had to offer.
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MikeK

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #22 on: November 26, 2011, 12:03:10 pm »

Perish the thought ! Next thing you will suggest is that some people weed in the swimming pool  :embarrassed: Who, moi ??  %)

Mike
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Bryan Young

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #23 on: November 26, 2011, 12:10:03 pm »

Perish the thought ! Next thing you will suggest is that some people weed in the swimming pool  :embarrassed: Who, moi ??  %)

Mike
Pool? Do you mean the saggy canvas bag thing that used to be rigged on deck with a fire hose stuck into it?
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BarryM

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Re: Old Merchant Ships
« Reply #24 on: November 26, 2011, 03:28:58 pm »

"Brasil Star. Sister ship of the Uruguay Star. Also carried 60 passengers, of which I was one when going to Brazil to join c/s “Norseman” in 1961/2."

Might have known! Only Cable & Wireless would travel by passenger liner to join ship. The rest of us worked our passage on another ship of the Company.  %)

C & W always had problems unmooring; they so rarely left their berths the winches were rusted solid.   :kiss:

Regards,

Barry M
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