In 1918, Christen Smith, a former officer in the Norwegian Navy, founded the shipping company Belships , the first two ships of which were launched in 1921 in the wake of the shipping crisis . In the early 1920s, locomotives and railroad cars from Europe and the United States that were shipped to South America and Asia increased. At the time, locomotives were dismantled into their component parts again after they had been built, so that they could be reassembled in the country of destination after shipping by sea. Shortly after the end of the First World War, the British company Armstrong, Whitworth & Company received an order to supply 200 heavy tank locomotives for the Belgian State Railways . Smith saw a niche in the freight market in the loading of complete locomotives and then had the two laid-up ships Belgot and Belfri converted into heavy-lift ships with two large hatches and powerful loading gear . In this way, locomotives could be ready for operation about a day after being put ashore.
New building
Soon after, Smith received an order to ship a large number of locomotives to India. He first traveled to Bombay to investigate the local conditions and then ordered the first newly constructed ship specially designed for heavy goods transport from the renowned Newcastle shipyard Armstrong, Whitworth & Company. The design of the Beldis went one step further than that of the Belgot and Belfri and had three cargo holds with large hatches and a reinforced tank ceiling, nine heavy cargo booms and eight winches. The motor ship with a carrying capacity of 3400 tons was also prepared for the transport of extremely heavy or particularly bulky loads on deck.
Career
The new building was delivered in 1924 and made its maiden voyage with seventeen locomotives from the Tyne to Buenos Aires. After twelve years, the ship was sold to the Lambert Brothers shipping company in London, which briefly continued to operate it as Beldisa before passing it on to Leif Erichsen's Rederi A / S in Bergen as Herma in 1937 . In April 1940, when German troops marched into Norway , the Herma was on her way from Halifax to Corner Brook and was on the side of the Allies for the remainder of the war . After numerous individual and convoy trips during the Second World War , the shipping company A / S Rask (Sigv. Risanger) in Haugesund took over the ship in April 1950 for 750,000 Norwegian kroner and renamed it Rask . Only two years later the ship changed for 3.5 million Norwegian crowns as Silja to the Suomen Moottorilaiva OY in Helsinki . In 1956 Varustamo Paavo Nurmi acquired the ship in Espo as Satu , and another two years later another sale took place within Finland as Make to O / Y Thombrokers A / B in Helsinki. The 1963 sale to Laiva O / Y Ritva (Erkki Poikonen) also left the ship in Helsinki. It was not until 1967, on the sale to the shipping company Matheos Rigas & Dinos Matropoulos in Piraeus the ship came as Marietta under Panama flag . In 1971 the Sariktzis-Kaeintis-Kritos demolition yard acquired the Marietta and began scrapping the 47-year-old ship in mid-August of that year.
literature
Duff, Peter: British Ships and Shipping . A Survey of modern Ship Design and Shipping Practice. 1st edition. George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd, London 1949.
