Contributions Received In 2006
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Previous letters and contributions to the site from 2006
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9th December 2006
A list of every ship owned by CP - can you spot any omissions?
http://www.theshipslist.com/ships/lines/cp.html
25th May 2006
We recently had an enquiry about CP Ships and its connections with Carnival Cruises.
There are two points - CP Ships no longer exists as an entity and there never was any connection with Carnival except that Carnival Cruises bought Empress of Canada in 1972
30th May 2006
Just heard that Barry Roberts has returned home after Heart surgery
CAVEAT EMPTOR
C N Hughes
This well known Latin phrase for let the buyer beware should be uppermost in the minds of those entrusted with both the purchase and sale of second-hand ships in view of the various problems that can lay in store as I have experienced over the years that I was involved in these activities. In this lengthy period what was loosely referred to as the Norwegian Sale Form (NSF) was invariably used although more properly its title was; Memorandum Of Agreement as issued by the Norwegian Shipbrokers Association. In my early days of involvement of ship sale and purchase it was the common practise to price all the varied consumable items carried onboard which included food and unbroached stores. This itself was an enormous task thankfully ended when the NSF added a clause stating that the ship and everything belonging to her was included in the price, the only usual exception being oil fuel bunkers and unused lubricating oil.
One of my first experiences concerned our Empress of Britain sold in 1965. The Superintendent Engineer acting for the buyers asked for a copy of the Shipbuilding Specification which was freely given. This simple request was to have important financial repercussions and involved Canadian Pacific in unforeseen expense. Empress of Britain was the lead ship of 3 Empress liners and because of this the Shipbuilding Specification included the spare propellers, propeller shafts and other large spare parts, the intention being that these would be common to all 3 ships and held in store at Liverpool. The Shipbuilding Specification did not of course mention this and furthermore the NSF included the standard clause stating that everything belonging to the ship both onboard, ashore and on order becomes the buyers property on delivery. The buyers insisted on having these spares and the 2 remaining Empress liners were therefore without cover until replacements could be obtained. A potentially vulnerable situation for a passenger ship to be placed in.
Later on that year, Canadian Pacific bought a relatively small Yugoslavian built Norwegian owned bulk carrier (R B Angus) as the first ship in what was to become Canadian Pacific Bermuda, a separate subsidiary of the parent company. The NSF stated that a so called Sale Dry-docking had to take place and a standard clause included that if any underwater damages effecting class were discovered in dry-dock then the seller had to make these good at their expense. As it happened quite a large underwater damage was discovered and the seller paid for the necessary repairs and also the dry-docking costs. Unfortunately the sellers had for some reason chosen to dry-dock the ship in Norway at the onset of winter and heavy snow and icy conditions prevailed throughout the period. The temperature dropped so low during the nights that the classification society suspended welding operations on the bottom damage to avoid future problems which delayed completion of the repairs.
Two years after entering Canadian Pacific’s service the ship sank in mid pacific during stormy conditions but fortunately all the crew were saved by a Japanese fishing vessel in the area. The ship had taken a list when its cargo of lead and zinc concentrates shifted which resulted in a loss of both main and auxiliary power leaving the ship at the mercy of the severe weather. Examination of the piping plans after the event revealed that the supply of fuel oil to the main and auxiliary engines would in fact be interrupted if the ship developed a list. Had the ship been bought new then the piping plans would have been checked by Canadian Pacific’s technical department and this elementary fault brought to the attention of the shipbuilder during construction. This an illustration of the perils awaiting those who purchase second-hand ships.
During a slump in the tanker market in 1972, a well known Norwegian Shipowner laid up four of his VLCC’s at an anchorage near Stord in Norway. The ships were offered for sale and we travelled to Norway to inspect them after meeting the Shipowners representatives in their resplendent Bergen office.
Accompanied by members of the Shipowners technical department we travelled out to the tankers in a launch to inspect the ships. In the event I recommended that Canadian Pacific should not buy these steam propelled VLCC’s for technical reasons mainly because they only had one boiler and no what was called a Get you home device. In any case Canadian Pacific had by then converted to Diesel propulsion and our own Diesel VLCC’s were proving to be extremely fuel efficient when compared with their steam driven contemporaries. Shortly after my visit the tanker spot market took off and we would have made a killing had we bought the ships albeit only temporarily. Rather strangely this Shipowner chartered one of our Diesel VLCC’s (I D Sinclair)some time later but he defaulted on hire payments and he was finally made bankrupt during yet another slump in the tanker spot market.
Canadian Pacific’s worst experience in the ship purchase market occurred in 1979 when the company bought a Panamax bulk carrier from a Norwegian owner (Fort Norman). One of my colleagues had inspected the ship and its classification records and found everything in apparent order. The sale dry-docking took place in Bremerhaven and in accordance with the NSF the sellers refused to allow any Canadian Pacific personnel onboard stating that the ship had already been inspected and had therefore been accepted subject only to the sale dry-docking. This refusal by the Norwegian owners should have raised suspicions but was accepted mainly because at that stage we had no evidence to indicate anything was wrong.
The dry-dock inspection revealed only minor damages which were dealt with by the sellers and the ship sailed under Canadian Pacific ownership after repairs had been completed. After six months or so satisfactory service, ships staff had occasion to enter one of the double bottom ballast tanks and this was when the full horror story began. All the internal steelwork structural members were corroded to such an extent that it was deemed unsafe for the vessel to continue in service. Several other double bottom tanks also exhibited the same degree of corrosion and the ship proceeded to Baltimore for repairs which took around six weeks and at a considerable cost. The classification records rather surprisingly did not mention any corrosion when the tanks were last surveyed and the ship was fully in class. We did consider taking legal action against the classification society involved but were advised not to do so by our own legal advisors. As a result of this experience a detailed check list was drawn up to assist those inspecting ships for possible purchase and it included the requirement that one or more ballast tanks be inspected internally. The company also purchased a portable ultrasonic thickness determination meter so that those inspecting a ship could check suspect parts of the steel structure.
Around this time we bought a Liberian registered Oil Bulk Ore (OBO) carrier (Fort Douglas) which we had previously inspected in New Orleans and found to be in satisfactory condition. The sale dry-docking took place in Japan and everything went according to plan although we did warn our marketing department not to trade the ship as a tanker as it had never carried an oil cargo and some oil charterers were reluctant to accept OBO’s. After several voyages the Captain reported that the duct keel was flooded and an investigation took place when the ship returned to Rotterdam to discharge cargo. It was found that the duct keel longitudinal girders had been the subject of many previous welded repairs although these had never been reported to the classification society concerned and it was at this location that the flooding had occurred. The investigation found that the practise onboard when ballasting the topside and hopper side tanks was to run them up to sea level and then fill the topside tanks to overflowing using the large capacity ballast pump.
During the investigation it was found that the air vent pipes serving the topside tanks were of a lesser area than the ballast filling line and it was this that caused a shock loading on the duct keel girders when using the ballast pump leading to the fractures. This was another feature that would have been detected had the ship been bought new and our technical staff had checked the shipyard plans.
It was decided that in future the topside tanks would be topped up using a hose from the firemain and no further problems were reported. When we took delivery of this ship we decided to change its registry from Liberian to Hong Kong, then using United Kingdom regulations. This did result in considerable expense even though Liberia was a signatory to all the various International Maritime Organisation’s Conventions. The Hong Kong authorities made a detailed inspection of the ship and found many items not in accordance with their own regulations based on those of the United Kingdoms Department of Transport. The draft marks were checked and found to be inaccurate which meant they all had to be changed and new certificates issued. Bulkhead linings in escape routes were not of an approved type and had to be changed so that all in all it was an expensive exercise. In recent years the situation with regard to change of registry has eased somewhat and the various National regulatory bodies tend to more readily accept each others rules.
One of the strangest craft I was asked to visit with a view to purchase was a self unloading log carrier (Haida Monarch) engaged on the British Columbia trade. The log cargo was loaded using the ships pedestal cranes and carried above deck but the means to unload them was novel to say the least. During the short sea passage from the loading to the discharge area the ship was manned but on arrival and prior to discharge the crew disembarked to a tug nearby and initiated a radio signal which started the ballast pump to discharge ballast from the double bottom tanks. This resulted in a negative GM and the ship tipped over discharging the deck cargo in minutes. Our management were not enamoured with this novel idea and they decided not to proceed with the exercise.
Another ship I was asked to inspect on behalf of another shipowner was a small luxury passenger ship (Aurora 1) which with her sister ship had been laid up because the owner had run into financial difficulties. There was also a problem with the ships in that they could not meet their contractual speed and the accommodation suffered from a distinctive obnoxious smell usually when the wind was blowing from the stern. I inspected one of the ships and found that the run of exhaust piping from the main engines had been designed to exhaust from outlets situated at the stern of the ship instead of the usual shipbuilding practise of leading them up the funnel uptakes and allowing the gasses to clear the ship. The ships had been built without a funnel apparently to enhance their appearance and give more deck space to the passengers. This had resulted in a tortuous run of exhaust gas piping through the engineroom and shaft tunnel leading to the aforementioned problems by placing a high back pressure on the main engines and allowing gasses to be drawn into the air conditioning plant. The ships were provided with a funnel containing the exhaust gas piping and the problems found to have been cured during a short trial trip after the modification had taken place. The ships were placed on the market and sold at a reasonable price.
Canadian Pacific decided to sell one of our Diesel VLCC’s ( T G Shauhnessy) and as the prospective buyers needed the ship urgently they decided to dispense with the usual sale drydocking clause and to inspect the ship whilst afloat, a potentially dangerous situation as most problems are found in drydock. The buyers representative made a cursory inspection of the ship whilst at anchor and expressed his satisfaction at the conditions found and the sale was completed. Some time later the buyers contacted our office to say that an extremely large indent had been found on the side shell necessitating extensive steel renewal and wanted to know what we intended doing about it. We were completely unaware of the problem which had presumably occurred subsequent to the last dry-docking. Our legal department were contacted for advice and they recommended that we simply ignore the problem on the grounds that you win a few and you lose a few.
When purchasing a ship the NSF can sometimes be used to advantage if one considers the clause relating to the propeller shaft. This states that the buyers have the right to have the propeller shaft drawn for classification purposes, any defects made good and the seller to pay for all drydocking expenses if defects are found. A bulk carrier we bought ( Fort Fraser) was found to have a propeller shaft key which was rather slack in its keyway. We claimed this was a defect in the terms of the NSF and the sellers rather reluctantly had to agree to pay all drydocking costs
The final incident concerns the same Panamax bulk carrier (Fort Fraser )we had bought. This ship had a main engine similar to several in our own fleet which suffered from what was referred to as the walking feet syndrome whereby relative movement between the cylinder jackets and scavenge air box took place. Although the sellers denied that such a defect was present in their ship we did persuade them to agree to a clause being added to the NSF stating that they would remedy such a defect if it was found. A magnetic dial gauge was purchased and during a short sea trip from discharge berth to the drydock it was demonstrated that such a movement was occurring and the sellers eventually agreed that remedial action had to be taken to their account. This involved removing the cylinder jackets, machining the feet and renewing all the bracing bolts between each jacket, a time consuming and expensive operation for the sellers not forgetting they also had to pay all the dry-docking costs.
- Following the successful introductions of Empress of Britain in 1956 and sistership Empress of England in 1957, negotiations began for a third ship. An order was signed with Vickers-Armstrongs of Newcastle in 1958, and the keel was laid in January 1959, on the same berth as Empress of England had been started four years earlier. Empress of Canada made her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Canada on 24th April 1961, by which time the service had already become summer only. She ran her first winter Caribbean cruise from New York in December 1961. She cruised out of New York during the winter, and the number of Atlantic crossings reduced over the years, so that only seven crossings were made in 1969. In 1968 she received the latest CP funnel design, which was adapted as the Carnival symbol when sold to them in February 1972, after completing her 121st and last Atlantic crossing in November 1971. She had been intended to join Shaw Savill, teaming with their Ocean Monarch as the Dominion Monarch, but this plan was shelved following the prolonged conversion of Ocean Monarch.
- As the Mardi Gras, she became Carnival's first ship. Despite extensive internal changes, her external profile remained largely unchanged through carnival and subsequent owners. In 1975 she was joined by another ex-Canadian Pacific liner, the Greek Line's Queen Anna Maria, ex-Empress of Britain, which became the Carnivale.
- Following the arrival of new purpose-built tonnage for Carnival, Carnivale was sold to Epirotiki in 1993, becoming Olympic, Star of Texas, Lucky Star and finally Apollon. In 1999 she was chartered to Direct Cruises, for a series of cruises from the UK, marketed as Apollo. Direct Cruises were acquired by Airtours, in which Carnival later look a temporary interest. In 2000 the scheduled cruises of Direct Cruises were cancelled, and Apollon returned to Greece to be laid up. She returned to service unexpectedly in 2001, on 4-day and 3-day cruises out of Piraeus, due to delays in the delivery of the Olympic Explorer. She operated in duplicate with Olympic Countess. She was sold for scrap in 2003.
Empress of Canada - Mardi Gras - Apollon
THE CANADIAN PACIFIC STORY.
C N Hughes.
The recent announcement that Canadian Pacific have taken delivery of the first of 5 new 3200 TEU container ships from the China Shipbuilding Corporation in Taiwan represents a somewhat remarkable turnaround in the fortunes of the previously dominant shipping arm of parent company Canadian Pacific Railway. During a period when many well known shipping companies have ceased trading Canadian Pacific have bucked the trend by expanding its shipping activities which now exceeds even those in its heady days of many years ago.
Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) was incorporated in 1881 and the railroad, when completed in 1885, stretched right across Canada connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans together. CPR’s involvement with shipping first commenced during construction of the railroad when the company purchased a number of small vessels operating on the Great Lakes to assist in the construction of this major civil engineering project. Shortly after the railroad was completed, Canadian Pacific introduced passenger and cargo liners on both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans thereby reducing the time taken from Europe to the Far East to less than 30 days instead of the previous 2 months or so needed when these journeys were undertaken solely by sea.
The fortunes of the railway company increased dramatically mainly as a result of its associated shipping companies activities in providing both passengers and freight. The large number of emigrants from both Europe and the Far East also helped the passenger ship sector in what was an extremely busy period. Mail contracts were also awarded to the company and the fleet expanded to meet the increased demand for its services. As part of this expansion Canadian Pacific bought both the Allan Line and the Beaver Line from Elder Dempster, also Canadian Pacific entered into a partnership with Canadian Australasian Line to operate a passenger ship service between Canada and Australia. The beneficial owner of the shipping arm of Canadian Pacific was either Canadian Pacific Railway or Canadian Pacific Ltd and its ocean services division were originally operated from the United Kingdom with the ships being registered under the British flag. The domestic operations on both the East and West coasts of Canada and the Great Lakes were operated quite separately from the ocean services division under Canadian management and registered under the Canadian flag. These were typically passenger ferries operating between Vancouver and Vancouver Island or in the Bay of Fundy on the East Coast
At the outbreak of the 1914-1919 first world war, Canadian Pacific Steamships as the ocean services arm was called owned a fleet of 19 ships comprising both Empress passenger liners and cargo liners. Of this total 11 were lost by enemy action and at the outbreak of the 1939-45 second world war the fleet comprised of 20 ships. The second world war resulted in the loss of a further 15 ships which meant that only 5 survived under Canadian Pacific ownership and all these were passenger liners, the cargo liners having all been destroyed by enemy action. To rebuild the cargo liner fleet after hostilities ended resulted in 4 new Beaver ships and 3 second-hand Beaver ships of similar size entering the North Atlantic service. The Pacific service was not re-introduced after the war apart from a period in 1952-4 when 2 of the Atlantic Beavers were transferred but the venture was not a commercial success.
After the second world war hostilities ceased, the surviving passenger liners restarted trading on the North Atlantic but disaster struck in 1953 when one of these, the Empress of Canada, was gutted by fire and destroyed when berthed at Liverpool docks in 1953. A replacement named De Grasse was bought from the French Line and quickly took her place. During the mid 1950’s and early 1960’s 3 new passenger ships were built to replace the ageing fleet and these were employed on the North Atlantic in summer months and then cruised usually from New York to the Caribbean in the winter months.
In the 1960’s, NorthAtlantic conventional cargo movements decreased partly because containerised cargo started to make inroads and also because the world-wide economic situation was far from satisfactory. Up until this period, all Canadian Pacific ships on International duty, both passenger and cargo, had been steam propelled as reflected in the name of the company, Canadian Pacific Steamships. The parent company, Canadian Pacific Railway, had recently changed all their steam locomotives to diesel and they were extremely happy at the financial rewards that this had produced. The Montreal head office therefore instructed the shipping arm that in future all ships had to be diesel propelled, a decision no doubt based on their own experience with diesel engines. This edict more or less coincided with the necessity to replace the steam propelled immediate post war Beavers with smaller dead-weight ships to match the decrease in conventional break bulk trade on the North Atlantic.
Several new diesel engined Beaver cargo ships entered service in the early 1960’s augmented by 2 second-hand diesel ships of similar size. These ships were much smaller than the immediate post war steam propelled Beavers and in addition were fitted out for service in the Great Lakes. The newly constructed ships were also ice strengthened and made regular calls to Quebec and Montreal in the winter months. This was a major departure from the previous practice of using ice free St John New Brunswick during the winter months.
An important policy change took place in the mid 1960’s when Canadian Pacific (Bermuda) was formed in order to penetrate the speculative tramp shipping market, an area previously avoided by the company. The decision was made mainly to counter the declining fortunes of both the Empress passenger liners and the Beaver cargo ships. By registering the ships in Bermuda, the choice of Nationality for the crew members enabled lower cost ratings to be employed although British officers were retained. Canadian Pacific (Bermuda) started with 1 second-hand bulk carrier but during the next 20 years or so expanded into an extremely large fleet operated first from the Liverpool office of Canadian Pacific Steamships and then the London office when the company moved there in 1969.
At its peak in the early 1980’s, the CP Bermuda tanker fleet comprised of 3 VLCC’s, 2 medium sized crude oil tankers and 12 product/chemical tankers. The dry cargo section comprised of 10 Panamax sized bulk carriers, 3 cape sized bulk carriers and 9 handy sized geared bulk carriers with a total dead-weight of about 2.5 million tonnes making it one of the largest independent shipping companies in the world. The fortunes of the Canadian Pacific (Bermuda) fleet varied in similar fashion to that of the charter market with boom years followed by depression which saw several ships being laid up. This scenario was unacceptable to the parent company and by the end of the 1980’s CP Bermuda had disposed of all the ships in its considerable fleet.
Returning now to the Empress passenger liners, their fortunes steadily declined in the 1960’s as cheap air travel dominated not only the North Atlantic scene but also the whole of the passenger liner industry.
At that time winter cruises to the Caribbean had not taken off, probably because they were not affordable to the vast numbers of passengers nowadays enjoying this form of relaxation not only to the Caribbean but to many other destinations. Starting in 1964 the Empress liners were disposed of one by one until the last Empress was sold in 1971. This was the third ship to bear the name Empress of Canada and she was sold to Carnival Cruises now a leading light in the cruise sector.
The Beaver cargo ships fared little better than the Empresses as the effects of containerisation started to make inroads into the break bulk trades and all the Beavers had been sold by 1972. To meet the container challenge, Canadian Pacific entered the North Atlantic container trade when it took delivery of 3 new container ships in 1970-71 built by Cammel Laird at Birkenhead. These ships were ice strengthened and operated between Tilbury, Rotterdam, Le Havre and Montreal throughout the year. Competition on the North Atlantic was becoming intense and, during their period of service, the ships did not prove to be profitable although they did provide valuable rail freight to parent company Canadian Pacific Railway which is probably why they were kept in service. Unlike many other container ships at that time, the Cammel Laird ships were diesel propelled and because of this had much lower fuel bills than their steam propelled contemporaries.
In 1981, Canadian Pacific joined forces with Compagnie Maritime Belge (CMB) and Furness Withy, which by then formed part of the CY Tung group, to form a co-ordinated service from Europe to Canada with CP having a majority share in a newly formed joint venture company called Canada Maritime. The Canada Maritime group operated 4 container ships previously owned by CMB and the C Y Tung group. They were of much larger capacity than the 3 original Canadian Pacific ships they replaced but were still able to meet the somewhat limited dimensional restrictions posed by navigation of the St Lawrence river. The ships were provided with ice strengthened hulls prior to entering service in order to serve Montreal during the winter months and the European ports of call now consisted of Felixstowe, Hamburg, Le Havre and Antwerp. Meanwhile the 3 original Cammel Laird built Canadian Pacific container ships had been chartered to a South American shipping company.
At the time that the co-ordinated North Atlantic service was introduced, a completely separate service from Europe to the East coast USA was also started. This was the Dart Containerline, a partnership also between Canadian Pacific, Compagnie Maritime Belge and the CY Tung group in similar fashion to the co-ordinated service to Canada. The Dart Containerline service consisted of 4 existing container ships originally on the Pacific service for the CY Tung group but now owned by the partners of Dart Containerline. These ships served Southampton (later Felixstowe), Antwerp, Bremerhaven and Le Havre and on the East coast USA, New York, Charleston, Baltimore and Norfolk.
The 1980’s proved to be an extremely unprofitable period for the tramp shipping sector and various measures were taken by Canadian Pacific to lessen the financial effect. One of these measures was to transfer the bulk shipping operations to the Isle of Man and also to open a recruitment office in the Philippines in order to obtain access to lower cost seafarers. Indian officers and ratings were also used during this period and seafarers were placed on off shore contracts but even these measures could not put off the evil day and as previously mentioned the bulk shipping fleet was sold by the end of the era.
The emphasis was then concentrated on container operations and to a lesser extent Ro Ro break bulk services through Canada Maritime then based at Horley. In its beginning Canada Maritime was as previously mentioned concerned with the co-ordinated service between Europe and Canada also the Dart Containerline service between Europe and the East coast USA.
Only one ship in each service was actually owned by Canadian Pacific together with a one third ownership of the fourth ship in each service. Two of the three original Cammel Laird built container ships were introduced to a newly started Mediterranean service to Montreal in 1986 and from a ship owning point of view this represented the lowest point in the companies history, after the bulk fleet had been sold, with only 5 ships remaining in Canadian Pacific ownership. The Mediterranean service to Canada was extended by entering into a partnership with Jadroplov and DSR-Senator lines and some time later 2 second-hand container ships were purchased to meet the increased demand in this expanding service.
Canadian Pacific was, by then, confident that the future of container shipping was in no doubt and commenced a vigorous campaign to increase its share of the market. In 1993 Canadian Pacific acquired Compagnie Maritime Belge’s interest in Canada Maritime, a move which added 2 ships to the fleet. The Cast group which included 4 container ships were next acquired by Canadian Pacific in 1995 to further increase their presence on the North Atlantic. This was followed by the acquisition of Lykes Lines and Contship Containerlines in 1998 which added 11 and 19 container ships respectively to the fleet which then stood at 45 ships. As a further example of Canadian Pacific’s optimism of the future prospects, 2 new ice strengthened container ships built in Korea were introduced on the Europe-Montreal service in 1996. These were the first new container ships built for Canadian Pacific since the 3 original container ships were delivered in 1970-71 and they were quickly followed by 2 further new ships also Korean built in 1998.
A further acquisition took place in 1998 when Canadian Pacific took over Ivaran Lines of Oslo whose container shipping services included those between North and South America and the Caribbean area. An even further development took place when a partnership with Transportacion Maritima was entered into, a company which had a joint venture with American President Lines and gave the venture increased presence into Mexico, Central and South America and Asia making it a truly world wide operation. More recently Canadian Pacific has acquired the Italia line formerly owned by the Italian Government and it now has around 80 container ships at its disposal. The 5 new ships from the China Shipbuilding Corporation mentioned earlier will be employed on the South American route and will be provided with deck cranes in order to serve ports not yet provided with their own container handing equipment.
Canadian Pacific is currently lying in fifth position in the world league of container ship owners and has recently announced that it hopes to move into fourth slot in the not too distant future. The company has in recent years concentrated its effort on the freight side of its shipping activities and as well as having a large fleet of ships at its disposal also has container trucking services and its own container terminals at Montreal as well as a string of freight offices throughout the sphere of its activities. All Canadian Pacific ships were until disposal of the Bermuda fleet originally managed in-house although as previously mentioned in an attempt to stave off the evil day low cost crews were gradually introduced. A ship management partnership with Barber (Wilhelmsen) was entered into some time ago but Canadian Pacific withdrew when it realised that this type of operation was not strictly in accordance with the companies prime function of moving freight in the form of containers. The management of the ships under its control and supervision of new ship construction is now left to outside ship management companies leaving the securement and transportation of freight its number one priority.