The S Class
1947/1950
These three ships are the Sangola, the Sirdhana and the Santhia.
A major BI route that had seen no new tonnage for over twenty years by the end of the Second World War was the Apcar Line from Calcutta to Chinese and Japanese ports. Although it was difficult to see where the future of China lay, the removal of Japanese shipping lines left a clear gap in the immediate post war years and Barclay, Curle were again chosen as the lead yard for a new class of ships for the Apcar service.
The ships were given three-island hulls with short well decks at Nos. 1 and 4 hatches and a very long centre-castle running from forward of the foremast to aft of the mainmast. As well as derricks on the masts, cargo was also handled from four sets of derrick posts at either end of the amidships structure plus two further cowl-topped pairs at the break of the poop and on the forecastle. For the 1st class passengers there was a lounge at the fore end and a smoke room at the after end of the promenade deck. However, the ships real purpose was the carriage of deck passengers, for whom four double-banked sets of boats were carried either side amidships, with further single pairs along side the masts. The days of needing to impress with multi-funnel installations were now past but the low single funnel, was pleasantly raked, as were the masts. A soft nosed stem and full cruiser stern set off a sturdy, workmanlike profile.
8,646 g, 5,053 n, 8,930 dw. 459.0 (478.7 oa) x 62.7 x 35.0 dft 26.4 feet
Twin screw, 2 x 4 cyl. 2S.C.S.A. Doxford diesels by the shipbuilder, 5,900 b.h.p., 15.39 k (trials)
21 1st class, 30 2nd class A, 40 2nd class B and 2,447 deck passengers. 1954: 335 bunked and 995 deck passengers. 11,000 c.f. refrigerated space
Launched 23/12/1946 and delivered 6/6/1947.
Sangola in 1956
The first of the new ships was the Sangola, launched in December 1946; an event which was notable in its use for the first time on the Clyde of short-wave telephones for communication amongst the launching crew. Mrs Liddle, wife of BI's Marine Superintendent, christened her. Commissioned on 6th July 1947 by Captain R.H.A. Bond, Sangola carried passengers from London to Mombasa on her delivery voyage beginning on the 28th. At Dar-es-Salaam on 23rd July she discharged 2,000 tons of cargo and returned to Mombasa for 68 Saloon passengers and 4,000 tons of cotton and soda ash for Bombay where she arrived on 20th August. Unlike her sister ships she never returned to East Africa.
Her career nearly came to a premature conclusion when on the afternoon of 1st July 1953 she took an unexpected sheer and grounded on Hirangunj Sand in the River Hooghly on her way downstream from Calcutta. For a while it looked as though the ship would be a total loss, for the fore part was hard aground and the after part swinging and rising and falling with the tide. She was eventually refloated on the 8th July and dry docked on the 9th September. She was badly hogged with a fourteen feet deep indentation in her bottom amidships and as the water was pumped out of the dock, she was gradually cut in two until she was sitting level on the blocks with the boat deck as the only connection between the two halves of the ship. It was November 1954 before she was able to be refloated and nearly the end of the year before she returned to service.
The Sangola served most of her career on the Apcar run, although political disturbances removed virtually all of the deck passenger trade and air travel much of the cabin passenger trade. Indeed from about 1951 Gurkha relief trooping between Calcutta and Malaya and Hong Kong provided the backbone of all the Apcar Line passenger activities. When the passenger side of the trade was finally abandoned at the end of 1962, she was sold to Japanese shipbreakers on 26th March 1963 and demolition commenced by Nichimen Co. Ltd. at Mihara on 3rd April. In 1965 her bell was presented to the Brigade of Gurkhas, whose troops, as well as being regular passengers, had played a notable part in ensuring an orderly evacuation when she ran aground.
8,608 g, 5,057 n, 8827 dw. 459.0 (479.3 oa) x 62.8 x 35.0 dft 26.3 feet.
Engine as Sangola. 15 k (trials)
21 1st class, 30 2nd class A, 40 2nd class B and 2,355 deck passengers. 1955: 21 1st class, 32 2nd class, 30 intermediate, 333 bunked and 987 deck passengers.
11,200 c.f. refrigerated space.
Launched 8/1/1947 and delivered 9/12/1947.
As early as the mid-'fifties, the Calcutta-Yokohama route was over-tonnaged. Fortunately, the S-class proved to be BI's most versatile, Sirdhana serving on all of the India-based routes at various times. In 1955 she became a relief ship on the Gulf run, filled in for the drydocked Rajula on the Straits service two years later and in 1958 was chartered by the Pakistan Government for the Haj. In April 1961 she replaced the ill-fated Dara on the Gulf run. On the 22nd October 1962 Sirdhana sailed on the first of two Bombay-Dar-es-Salaam trips.
She was the first of the trio to leave the Apcar service, being switched in 1956 to the Bombay-Persian Gulf run, where demand was out-stripping the capacity of the smaller Gulf Ds. She returned briefly to the Apcar service at the end of the 1950s and then made some pilgrim voyages from both East and West Pakistan ports to Jeddah. Otherwise she was employed almost entirely in the Gulf service, so it was fitting that she was chosen to open the new deep water harbour at Port Rashid in Dubai and be the first vessel to go alongside on 19th November 1970.
The Sirdhana was one of the ships at a final 'gathering of the clan' in African ports. Sirdhana, Chakdara and Amra occupied adjoining Kilindini berths at Mombasa on 15th January 1971 whilst three days later Chakdara joined Waipara alongside at Mtwara.
The Sirdhana replaced Kampala on the Dar-es-salaam route on the 22nd February 1972 sailing. She made only three East African voyages in 1972, turning round at Dar-es-Salaam, the last one concluding at Bombay on 20th May, before being sold to Taiwanese breakers on 3rd August 1972. She arrived at Koahsiung for demolition which commenced by Nan Feng Steel-Enterprise Co. on the 16th. By then she was easily the longest lasting of the S-class in the Company's service, her only mishap being when she was rammed amidships by the American transport General William Mitchell at Yokohama on 26th November 1960.
8,908 g, 5,089 n, 8,590 dw. 450.0 (479.3 oa) x 62.8 x 35.0 dft 26.4 feet
Engine as Sangola. 16.25 k (trials)
25 1st class, 68 2nd class A, 68 2nd class B and 1,619 deck passengers. Deck later 762 plus 268 bunked. 1963: 141 one class.
Launched 1/6/1950 and delivered 3/11/1950.
There was a gap of three years before Barclay, Curle launched the last of the trio, the Santhia, in June 1950 (Captain C. J. Feller). She was christened by Mrs J.B. Currie, daughter-in-law of the Company Chairman and delivered in November of that year. The most prominent difference in appearance from her sisters was a single, tall cowl-topped derrick post on the forecastle instead of the pair in the earlier ships. The shelter deck was also extended aft to join the poop.
The Santhia's cargo carrying capacity was slightly different from the Sangola and Sirdhana, she had 360,000 cu. ft./15,000 cu. ft. reefer compared to 402,000 cu. ft and 11,000 cu. ft.
The Santhia made two East African voyages before joining her sisters in the Apcar service and, apart from a brief spell in the Gulf run at the end of the 1950s and again to East Africa in 1960, remained there after. It became a two-ship, five-weekly service from 1956 onwards.
When the Apcar passenger trade was abandoned at the end of 1962, she returned to the Gulf with occasional East African runs until sold on 16th December 1966 to the Shipping Corporation of India. They refitted her for the Bombay-East Africa service, which she entered as the State of Haryana in 1967. At the end of 1974 she was switched to the Andaman Islands trade, for which she was temporarily renamed Nancowry, but the collapse of her auxiliary boilers in November 1976 caused her withdrawal and on 2nd January 1977, again as the State of Haryana, she arrived at Durukhana, Bombay, to be broken up. A fire broke out the following day but was extinguished with little damage and demolition took its course.