The A-class ships were developed in Alfred Holt's design department for the shipping company's Far East service. The individual units were built in different shipyards. The term Agamemnon class was derived from the type ship Agamemnon . The design was built in five units and initially used by the group shipping companies Ocean Steam Ship Company and China Mutual Steam Navigation Company and later by the subsidiary Glen Line .
Two of the ships were converted into auxiliary mine layers during the Second World War and then into recreational ships for seafarers with extensive accommodation options. Two Agamemnon-class ships were sunk in World War II, and one suffered a fire in 1953 after an engine room explosion. The last two ships remained in the Blue Funnel liner service until the end of their respective careers. The period in which the shipping company used ships of this series extended over a full three decades.
technical description
The Agamemnon class ships were built as general cargo ships with superstructures arranged amidships and had a small number of passenger seats. The ships had a carrying capacity of around 9,000 tons, six holds with refrigerated holds and sweet oil tanks . The cargo was handled with conventional loading gear .
The engine room, the length of which was designed to be particularly short due to the arrangement with two small main engines, was located under the deckhouse. The drive consisted of two eight-cylinder four-stroke diesel engines from the Danish manufacturer B&W , which acted on two propellers.
The ships
Agamemnon class
Ship name
Shipyard / construction number
Commissioning
Shipping company
Later names and whereabouts
Agamemnon
Workman, Clark / -
September 1929
Ocean Steam Ship Company
Commanded by the Admiralty on December 30, 1939, and from October 1940 to October 1943 employed as an auxiliary mine-layer with the 1st Minelaying Squadron in Kyle of Lochalshals, arrived in Vancouver in 1943 for conversion to the British Pacific Fleet's recreation ship, but not completed by 1945 on April 26 Returned in 1947 and back in service, scrapped in Hong Kong from March 26, 1963
Menestheus
Caledon Shipbuilding / -
December 1929
Ocean Steam Ship Company
Commanded by the Admiralty on December 14, 1939 and used as an auxiliary mine layer from June 22, 1940, damaged by an air raid off Iceland in 1942 and brought in to Lochalsh by the sister ship Agamemnon , converted into a recreation ship of the British Pacific Fleet in 1943/44, out of service in 1946, Returned in 1948 and underway again, abandoned on April 16, 1953 at Punta Eugenio after an engine room explosion and fire, brought into Long Beach on May 5 for investigation, arrived in Baltimore on June 10, towed for demolition
Deucalion
Hawthorn Leslie / -
1930
Ocean Steam Ship Company
On 21/22 Damaged by an air raid in Gladstone Dock, Liverpool, on December 12th 1940, sunk by an air raid off Cani near Malta on 12 August 1942
Memnon
Caledon Shipbuilding / -
1931
China Mutual Steam Navigation Company
Torpedoed and sunk on March 11, 1941 by U-106 off Cape Blanco, Cape Verde, five deaths
Ajax
Scott's Shipbuilding / -
1931
Ocean Steam Ship Company
1957 as Glenlochy to the Glen Line, 1958 as Sarpedon back to the Ocean Steam Ship Company, scrapped from August 1962
literature
Haws, Duncan: Blue Funnel Line . 1st edition. TCL Publications, Torquay 1984, ISBN 0-946378-01-0 .
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