Bloemfontein Castle
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The Bloemfontein Castle was a passenger ship of the British Union-Castle Line that entered service in 1950 on the route from London to South Africa and Mozambique . The ship, which was converted into a ferry in 1975 , changed name and owner several times in its 36 years of service before it was retired in 1986 and scrapped in Pakistan in 1987 .
history
Union-Castle Line
The Bloemfontein Castle was under the hull number 1421 at Harland & Wolff in Belfast built and launched in August 25, 1949th After the takeover by the Union-Castle Line in March 1950, the ship took on the liner service from London to Cape Town and Beira on April 6, 1950 .
On January 8, 1953, the Bloemfontein Castle rescued passengers and crew members of the Dutch passenger and cargo ship Klipfontein , which ran aground on a wreck off Mozambique and then sank.
On November 9, 1959, after nine years of service, the ship completed its last crossing to South Africa and Mozambique and was then sold to the Greek shipping company Chandris under the name Patris .
Chandris
After renovation work in North Shields, the Patris was transferred to Greece and used in the liner service from Piraeus to Sydney from December 14, 1959 . From 1972 the ship also made cruises from Australia to Singapore before it was launched in Singapore in 1974 .
On February 15, 1975, the Patris arrived in Darwin , where it was used as a barge for residents who had become homeless after a cyclone . The ship then returned to Piraeus in November 1975, where it was converted into a ferry in December. On June 17, 1976, the Patris began service on the routes from Ancona to Patras and from Venice to Patras.
Karageorgis Lines
In 1979 the ship went to Karageorgis Lines , which first used it as Mediterranean Island and from 1981 as Mediterranean Star between Ancona and Patras.
In the autumn of 1982, the Mediterranean Star had to interrupt its service for several weeks when a fire broke out in the ship's engine room on August 28, causing great damage. In September 1982 the ship was towed to Perama for repairs before it could be put back into service. In October 1985 the Mediterranean Star was launched in Eleusis after a further three years of service .
In May 1986, the Alexandria- based Star Navigation Company chartered the ship to operate between Piraeus, Limassol and Alexandria. After the charter expired, the Mediterranean Star was finally retired on September 29, 1986 and re-launched in Eleusis.
In August 1987 the ship was sold to Pakistan for scrapping and renamed Terra . It arrived in Gadani on October 11th , where it was dismantled after a service life of 37 years.
Web links
- History of the ship on ssmaritime.com (English)
- the ship on faktaomfartyg.se (Swedish)