The Nestor class of the British Blue Funnel Line was built in three units from 1952. The ships of the class were built at the Caledon shipyard in Dundee and had been developed for the shipping company's Australian service. The term Nestor class was derived from the type ship Nestor .
The résumés of the ships were relatively calm. The type ship Nestor was transferred to the subsidiary Glen Line from 1968 to 1970 and renamed Glenaffric for this time , after which it continued its service as Orestes in the Ocean Steam Ship Company. In 1971/72 all three ships were sold to the Aegis group of the Greek shipping company ND Papalios, where they continued to operate under the Panamanian flag for a short time. All three ships finally arrived in China for demolition around two years after they left the Blue Funnel fleet.
From the mid-1960s, passenger transport was abandoned, as the majority of the passenger volume shifted to air traffic.
technical description
The Nestor class ships were conventional general cargo ships with superstructures amidships. The design was a further development of the A-class ships, the design of which was based on the Glenearn class ships built between 1938 and 1942 for the subsidiary Glen Line , but developed by Holt's . They had a carrying capacity of 9500 tons, six holds with tween decks, refrigerated holds , sweet oil tanks and passenger facilities. The cargo was handled with conventional loading gear .
The most interesting shipbuilding detail of the Nestor series was the propulsion system, which was designed for high performance due to the high speed required on the Far East route. The design of the drive with high-temperature high-pressure vessels and three high-pressure steam turbines supplied by Metropolitan Vickers Electric Company, which acted on a single screw via a reduction gear, was designed by Commander Baker, a former Royal Navy engineer. The machine system brought a noticeable reduction in fuel consumption, but was also significantly more complex than on comparable ships in the fleet, which meant that the machine personnel had to be specially trained and then mostly permanently deployed on the three ships of the class.
The ships
Blue Funnel Line Nestor class
Ship name
Shipyard / construction number
IMO number
Commissioning
Shipping company
Later names and whereabouts
Nestor
Caledon Shipbuilding / 485
5249596
October 1952
Ocean Steamship Company
1968 Glenaffric , 1970 Orestes , 1971 Aegis Dignity , handed over to the China National Metal and Mineral Import & Export Corporation in Whampoa for demolition on December 6, 1973
Neleus
Caledon Shipbuilding / 486
5248748
February 1953
China Mutual Steam Navigation Company
1972 Aegis Fable , 1973 Aegis Trust , handed over to the China National Metal and Mineral Import & Export Corporation in Shanghai for demolition on March 29, 1974
Theseus
Caledon Shipbuilding / 498
5358751
March 1955
Ocean Steamship Company
1971 Aegis Myth , 1972 Aegis Care , sold in 1973 after demolition to the China National Metal and Mineral Import & Export Corporation, scrapped from December 7, 1973 in Shanghai
literature
Andrew Bell: Blue Funnel's 'P' and 'H' Classes Fast Cargo Liners of 1949-1951 . In: Ships monthly . Vol. 34, No.1 , January 1999, p.42-45 .
Haws, Duncan: Blue Funnel Line . 1st edition. TCL Publications, Torquay 1984, ISBN 0-946378-01-0 .
