The Beauvais was originally built as the Liberty freighter John Lawson (type EC2-S-C1). The keel was laid on May 26, 1943 at the North Carolina Shipbuilding yard in Wilmington, just under a month later, on June 24, 1943, the ship was launched and a few days later, on June 30, 1943, the general cargo ship was sent to United States War Shipping Administration delivered. During the war, the John Lawson was used in the Western Pacific, among other places, where it survived a kamikaze attack without major damage.
Post-war service as a general cargo ship Beauvais
On February 11, 1947, the ship in Baltimore was taken over by the French shipping company Compagnie Générale Transatlantique and renamed Beauvais . In the following years the Beauvais was used on various liner services of French shipping companies and was chartered out at times.
Conversion and use as a liquid gas tanker Beauvais
After a layover from 1960 in Dunkirk, the shipping company sold the ship on February 10, 1961 to the company Méthane Transport, a joint venture founded by Gaz de France , Gazocéan , shipyards and banks, which was to investigate the possibility of transporting liquefied natural gas by sea. The shipyard Chantiers de l'Atlantique in Saint Nazaire built three experimental liquefied gas tanks from different shipyards and different insulation systems into the ship in 1961/62. In the following years the ship led by the ship management of Cie. Nantaises des Chargeurs de l'Ouest test drives. The results of these investigations led in 1965 to the construction contract for the first liquid gas tanker in France, the Jules Verne . The Beauvais initially stayed on the hook for a long time, delivered the first natural gas from Béthioua (Arzew) on February 19, 1965 to start up the new gas station in Le Havre and was then launched again. In March 1967, the ship began its last voyage to Castellon, where it was finally scrapped in May.
literature
Howard A. McKinley: The Prospects for Liquefied Natural Gas in the European Energy Market , Symposium on Petroleum Economics and Evaluation, Dallas, 1965, ISBN 978-1-55563-864-1
