Adrastus et la Blue Funnel Line

Le cargo mixte Adrastus à l'ancre (collection agence Adhémar)

Adrastus, premier du nom, 7906 GRT, 459 pieds 6 pouces (140m) de long, 58 pieds 1 pouce (17,7m) de maître-bau, vitesse de service de 14 nœuds, a été construit en 1923 sur les chantiers Scott's Ship Building and Engineering Co. de Greenock, auxquels Holt était fidèle. C'était le sister-ship d'Eumeaus, autre cargo mixte au sein de l'Ocean Steam Ship Company. Adrastus servit aux transport de pèlerins pour la Mecque (Jeddah). Il survécut à la seconde Guerre mondiale pendant laquelle la compagnie perdit 41 navires. En juillet 1951, il est rebaptisé Euryades pour laisser son nom à un autre cargo. Au début de 1954, il est brièvement utilisé sur le ligne Côte Pacifique-Philippines-Indes avant d'être laissé à Holy Loch en février. Le 10 août, il arrive à Faslane pour être détruit par Metal Industries.

En 1864, Alfred et Philip Holt conçurent l'Ocean Steam Ship Company dans le jardin familial de Liverpool. Ils y virent tout de suite la grande aventure de leur vie et, en passionnés de L'Odyssée, ils donnèrent à leurs bateaux les noms des héros éternels d'Homère. Sortis des chantiers Scotts de Greenock en 1865, les trois premiers, à tout seigneur, tout honneur, furent baptisés Agamemnon, Ajax et Achilles. Grâce aux dons techniques d'Alfred, ancien mécanicien sur les locomotives, les nouveaux vapeurs sont mieux exploités et la faible consommation de charbon rend rentables les voyages vers la Chine. Holt marqua ainsi l'évolution de l'histoire maritime.
De 1919 à 1934, Hott ajouta 28 nouvelles unités à sa flotte dont 11, équipés des meilleures machines, contribuèrent à maintenir la compagnie à la pointe des technologies. Mais la prudence était alors à l'honneur et les nouveaux équipements ne furent installés à grande échelle qu'après avoir été largement testés sur un nombre limité de navires.
La Blue Funnel Line (composée de Ocean Steam Ship Company Limited, Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij Ocean, East Indian Ocean Steam Ship Company et China Mutual Steam Navigation Company) desservait l'Australie en accord avec la White Star Line dans les années 1920 (partenariat rejoint par Aberdeen Line en 1926) et pris le contrôle d'autres compagnies à partir de 1930 (Elder Dempster, Glen and Shire Lines et Straits Steam Ship Co…).
Routes / Itinéraires des cargos de la Blue Funnel Line
1852-1853 Whitehaven - Cardiff.
1853-1855 Liverpool - Bordeaux.
1857-1864 Liverpool - West Indies.
1865-1869 Liverpool - Mauritius - Penang - Singapore - Hong Kong - Shanghai.
1869-1980 Liverpool - Suez - Penang - Singapore - Hong Kong - Shanghai - Japan.
1880-1899 Singapore - Belawan Deli / Singapore - Penang and intermediate ports.

1894-1973 Singapore - Batavia - Darwin - Derby - Cossack - Onslow - Gascoyne - Geraldton - Fremantle.
1901-1956 Glasgow - Liverpool - Cape Town - Australia.
1902-1984 China - Vancouver - Seattle - North Pacific Coast ports - San Diego.
1910-1913 Liverpool - Fishguard (for passengers) - Australia.
1915-1978 New York - Panama - Far East ports.
1973-1978 Fremantle - Sunda Strait - Singapore - Malacca Strait - Klang - Georgetown (Penang) - Singapore - Christmas Island - Fremantle.
1979-1981 Fremantle - Singapore - Manila - Hong Kong - Fremantle.

Seasonal pilgrimage voyages between Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore to Jeddah / Pèlerinages entre Indonésie, Malaisie, Singapour et Jeddah.

Alfred and Philip Holt conceived the founding of The Ocean Steam Ship Company in the garden of their father's Liverpool home.  They saw this as the greatest adventure of their lives and because the Odyssey was for them the finest adventure story ever written they gave Homeric names to all their ships. Holt formed the Ocean Steam Ship Company which ordered three steamers from Scotts of Greenock: Agammemnon, Ajax and Achilles.  With their compound engines and the high-pressure boilers with which Holt was familiar from his locomotive engineering,  the ship's coal consumption was low enough to allow profitable voyages to China under steam. These cargo liners were amongst the most significant ships ever built and with them Holt made a major contribution to shipping history.
Adrastus was built in 1923 by Scott's Ship Building and Engineering Co. at Greenock with a tonnage of 7905grt, a length of 459ft 6in, a beam of 58ft 1in and a service speed of 14 knots. Sister of the Eumeaus she was built for the Ocean Steam Ship Co. and at one stage during her career, when she operated as a pilgrim ship to jeddah, she had her boat deck lifeboats paired one above the other. In June 1927 her master hanged himself in his cabin as she approached Penang. Surviving the war she was renamed Euryades in July 1951to release her name for a new building. At the beginning of 1954 she was briefly deployed on the US Pacific coast ports - Philippines - East Indies route before being laid up at Holy Loch in February of that year. On 10th August 1954 she arrived at Faslane where she was broken up by Metal Industries.
During the 15 years between 1919 and 1934 Holt's added 28 new ships to the fleet. The company was still at the forefront of technology and, as a result new advances, 11 of the ships, although of the customary design, were fitted with new machinery and equipment. Caution was still the order of the day and new equipment would only be installed on a large scale after extensive service testing on a limited number of ships.
They later set up a joint service with White Star Line to Australia in the 1920s and took over control of other lines in the 1930s including Elder Dempster, Glen and Shire Lines and the Straits Steam Ship Co.

SS Peleus (1949) de la Blue Funnel Line d'Alfred Holt de Liverpool

SS Peleus de la Blue Funnel Line d'Alfred Holt de Liverpool, lignes d'Afrique du Sud, d'Australie et d'Extrême Orient. (collection agence Adhémar) Peinture de Walter Thomas*

SS Peleus, vapeur de 10093 tonnes, long de 149 mètres, filant 18 nœuds. Les quatre paquebots mixtes de "classe P" de la Blue Funnel Line (Peleus, Perseus, Patroclus et Pyrrhus) ont été lancé à partir de 1949 pour compléter la "classe A" (Atraus, Adrastus, Alcinious, Arencas, Ajax, Astyanax…) construite dans l'excitation de l'après-guerre. Bien qu'ils leur aient ressemblé d'aspect, ils constituaient une nouvelle catégorie de paquebots, plus larges, plus rapides et surtout équipés de turbine à vapeur qui remplaçaient les moteurs de la "classe A".
SS Peleus a été construit à son port d'attache, Liverpool, par Cammell Laird & Co. Ltd., Birkenhead. Il a été démoli à Taiwan en 1972.

SS Peleus, 10,093 tons, L 489 feet, 18 knots. The four "P" boats of the Blue Funnel Line were introduced after war, starting with the Peleus in 1949. The other "P" class ships were Perseus, Patroclus and Pyrrhus. The quartet was built to serve the express cargo and passenger trade between the U.K., continent and far east to which end. Although based closely on the design of the "A" class (Atraus, Adrastus, Alcinious, Arencas, Ajax, Astyanax…) they were larger, faster and steam turbine driven. SS Peleus was built at her home port by Cammell Laird & Co. Ltd., Birkenhead. Scrapped in Taiwan in 1972.

The Fleets Blue Funnel Line (Ocean Steamship Company / Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij 'Ocean' / East Indian Ocean Steam Ship Company / China Mutual Steam Navigation Company)
Alfred Holt commenced shipowning with Thomas Ainsworth in 1852 and built their first new ship in 1854, which they immediately chartered to the French Government for use in the Crimean War. The company started sailings to the West Indies in 1855, but in the face of competition from established companies, later pulled out of this route. In 1864 they began sailing to China and the Far East, and have since become the major British company serving this area. The company was registered as the Ocean Steamship Co. in 1865.
In 1891, a Dutch subsidiary company, Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij 'Ocean' (N.S.M.O) was formed to compete with Dutch companies serving the East Indies, and the company also formed the Singapore based East Indian Ocean SS Co. the same year. The China Mutual Steam Navigation Co. was taken over in 1902 together with their fleet of 13 steamers and their route between China and the West Coasts of Canada and the USA. Although ships were nominally owned by China Mutual SN Co. after this date, these are not shown seperately for the purposes of this list.
In 1915 Royden's Indra Line of seven ships was purchased with their New York - Far East service. Greenshields, Cowie & Co's Knight Line was bought in 1917 and a joint passenger service to Australia with the White Star Line was formed in 1924 and this was joined by the Aberdeen Line in 1926. The Glen and Shire Lines (not the Scottish Shire Line) were taken over in 1935 following the collapse of the Royal Mail group, and a controlling interest in the Straits SS Co. was acquired the same year. Shaw, Savill had taken over the joint service to Australia from White Star Line, but Blue Funnel Line withdrew from this partnership in 1939.
In 1967 the Blue Funnel and Elder Dempster Line fleets merged and in 1972 the group acquired William Cory & Son Ltd and became Ocean Trading & Transport Co. Ltd. Transfers between different companies within the group became common after this date, but these have been largely ignored for the purposes of this list.

* Walter Thomas (1894-1971), peintre (huile et aquarelle) et illustrateur de liverpool spécialisé dans l'affiche et les documents promotionnels pour différentes compagnies de navigation. Il était l'assistant du prolifique Odin Rosenvinge. Ses gros clients furent The Blue Funnel, Cunard, Elder Dempster et White Star Line.

Walter Thomas (1894-1971) - a Liverpool marine painter and illustrator. He painted in both oil and watercolour providing subjects that could be translated into poster art and other promotional projects. He worked for the Liverpool printing firm of Turner and Dunnett as assistant to Odin Rosenvinge, one of the most prolific of the poster artists. Clients of the firm included the major shipping companies Blue Funnel, Cunard, Elder Dempster and White Star Line.

Le navire-hôpital australien AHS Centaur

Le navire-hôpital australien (Australian Hospital Ship) AHS Centaur a été attaqué et coulé par le sous-marin japonais I-177 au large des côtes du Queensland (Australie), le 14 mai 1943, à son second voyage comme transport médical entre la Nouvelle-Guinée et l'Australie. Des 332 personnes composant le service médical et l'équipage civil, 268 périrent.

Le paquebot mixte Centaur a sauvé les victimes allemandes du combat de 1941 entre le croiseur auxiliaire Kormoran et le cuirassé léger HMAS Sydney.
Il ne sera transformé en navire-hôpital qu'en 1943.

Début 1923, Ocean Steamship Company (une filiale de la Blue Funnel Line d'Alfred Holt) décide de la construction d'un nouveau paquebot pour remplacer le vieillissant Charon sur la route reliant l'Ouest australien à Singapour. Le paquebot mixte devait pouvoir transporter des passagers et des marchandises autant que du bétail. Il devait aussi être capable de tenir droit dans la vase des ports australiens qui subissent des marées de plus de huit mètres d'amplitude. Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company de Greenock, en écosse fut choisi pour construire Centaur. Construit pour 72 passagers et 450 têtes de bétail, le paquebot a été livré en quatre morceaux le 29 août 1924. Il a coûté 146 750 livres sterling. Les deux ponts inférieurs étaient prévus pour le bétail, ils servirent souvent de stockage supplémentaire pour les marchandises. La coque était du type "turret deck", les ponts sous la ligne de flottaison étant plus large que ceux du dessus. Centaur fut parmi les premiers navires civils à posséder un moteur Diesel. Pour respecter les conditions de construction de l'époque, il se caractérisait par une haute cheminée de 11 mètres surdimensionnée pour un Diesel.