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TRIDENT TANKERS.
(Source: The Story of P&O by D.&S. Howarth. P&O A Fleet History by S. Rabson & K. O’Donoghue.
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In an attempt to diversify from its more accepted trades the P&O Group decided to enter onto the world tanker market and in its annual report in 1955 issued the following statement: ‘It is for increased tanker tonnage more than for increased dry cargo tonnage that the world has been asking, and since at present the P&O Group neither owns nor operates any tankers, the directors…decided during the year to enter the tanker field, and berths have been reserved for some 500,000 d.w.t, of tankers for delivery during 1958, 1959 and 1960 from British shipyards’. The executive first charged with the task of forming the Trident fleet was Mr A.B. Marshall of Mackinnon Mackenzie, India, he successfully oversaw its steady growth for its first few years until later being appointed Chairman of the P&O Group.
QUEDA.
Built: 1959 by Scotts Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. Ltd., Greenock.
Tonnage: 13,252 g, 7,312 nt, 19,045 dwt.
Engine: Single screw, one set two-stage Pametrada turbines by builder, 8,800 SHP, 14.7 knots.
Launched 14th August 1958, completed 2nd March 1959, Yard No. 677.
Queda is a corruption of Kheda, a district in Gujarat, India.
Queda was the companies third tanker and was launched by Mrs W.H. Brown, wife of BI’s Company Marine Superintendent of the initial five tankers laid down for the P&O group, although her owners were registered as the New Zealand Shipping Company she was manned by BI officers. Queda transferred to Trident Tankers Ltd., on the 9th of May 1963 and her distinctive BI funnel was changed to the new black with Neptune’s trident imposed on a white diamond. Considered too small by the late sixties she was sold to the Clyde Shipping Company and renamed Saint Michel on the 19th of July 1969. Became 9 DE OCTUBRE for Petroleos de Peru in 1971 and three years later underwent conversion to an LPG carrier, scrapped in 1981.
QUILOA.
Built: 1960 by Scotts Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. Ltd., Greenock.
Tonnage: 13,113 g, 7,341 nt, 19,026 dwt.
Engine: Single screw, one set of two-stage Pametrada turbines by builder, 8,800 SHP, 14.7 knots.
Launched 3rd November 1959, completed 24th March 1960, Yard No. 678.
Quiloa or Quilon is a town on the Malabar Coast now in Kerala.
Built for the New Zealand Shipping Company and manned by BI officers she was transferred to Trident Tankers Ltd., in 1963. Her registration was transferred to British India in 1966 and back to Trident Tankers on the 1st of October 1969. Sold to Pandora Shipping, Famagusta on the 7th of March 1972 and became Michiel, sold again in 1974 with a name change to Great Justice before finally being scrapped at Kaohsiung in February of 1977.
Initially it had been the boards intention to build within its target of 500,000 tons approximately twenty-five ships at an average weight of about 20,000 tons, however with the unexpected downturn in world demand for oil the board revised its ship numbers down to fifteen raising the average weight to 36-37,000 ton. The first ship off the stocks was Federal Steams Lincoln at a mere 12,780 tons, delivered in December of 1958 for a newly formed management company, Charter Shipping of Bermuda; the registration in Bermuda was to take advantage of their lower tax rates. Maloja quickly followed Lincoln in April of 1959 for Charter Shipping, Quiloa in November of the same year for British India S.N. and Mantua in April of 1960 for Charter Shipping. Busiris was the first tanker of the smaller group to exceed 20,000 tons and was completed for Moss Hutchinson in March of 1961 and managed by British India, Malwa, of a similar size followed after trials on the 4th of November. The only two ships completed for James Nourse, Foyle and Erne, the former later renamed Megna were completed in 1961/62 respectively
With the surplus of smaller tankers available worldwide, some 4,000,000 tons, P&O was more fortunate than other operators inasmuch as they had been able to secure five-year charters for all its tonnage. The directors thus felt that their change in direction to that of larger tankers was justified and to centralise the fleets operation formed one single management concern called Trident Tankers in 1962. By 1964 Trident Tankers was by far the largest independent carrier of crude operating a fleet comprising some 2.4 million grt out of a national total of 7.47 million, this represented one tanker out of every three being P&O owned, a formidable achievement given the time scale. This particular tanker build programme was completed by the arrival of the ‘Ard’ class vessels, Ardlui, Ardshiel, Ardtaraig and Ardvar, specifically designed for round the Cape service to the Gulf with the closure of the Suez Canal.
TALAMBA.
Built: 1964 by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd., Wallsend.
Tonnage: 34,709 g, 19,893 nt, 53,800 dwt.
Engine: Single screw, one set of two-stage Pametrada turbines by Wallsend Slipway & Engineering Co Ltd., 17,600 SHP, 15.75 knots.
Launched 22nd July 1963, completed 21st February 1964, Yard No. 1879.
Talamba is a town near Multan in the Punjab, now Pakistan.
The company chairman’s wife, Mrs K.M. Campbell, launched Talamba. Two months into her fitting out she broke adrift from her moorings, fortunately she was caught by tugs and returned alongside having suffered no damage. Her ownership passed to Trident Tankers on the 1st of October 1969 and P&O took her over on the 27th of September 1972. After suffering a catastrophic failure due to a condenser discharge valve bursting when on passage Zuetina to Port Arthur, Texas, January 1976, she was towed to Brest where it was decided that it was uneconomic for repairs to be carried out and she was scrapped at Hamburg in the same year.
In 1963 the group ordered its first bulk carriers, orders were placed at one Japanese yard and three British. P&O also embarked on an agreement with Erling Naess’Anglo Norness Shipping Company for a joint commercial venture of their combined fleets. The company was to be registered as Associated Bulk Carriers in Bermuda and initially time chartered nineteen Anglo Norness and eight P&O Group vessels in April of 1964. As it turned out P&O Bulk became the Groups single biggest investment in this year with long term contracts being sought for the carriage of coal, bauxite, iron ore, grain and phosphate and other lesser known cargoes.
OPAWA.
© I. Lovie
Built: 1965 by Barclay, Curle & Co. Ltd., Glasgow.
Tonnage: 38,996 g, 23,948 nt, 62,840 dwt.
Engine: Single screw, 10 x cylinder 2S.C.SA. Burmeister & Wain by J.G. Kincaid & Co. Ltd., Glasgow, 20,700 BHP, 16.25 knots.
Launched 13th July 1964, completed January 1965, Yard No. 751.
Opawa is a river on the south island, New Zealand.
Opawa was completed for Trident Tankers and her management was transferred on the 16th of August 1971. Ownership and registration transferred to P&O.S.N. Co., on the 27th of September 1972. Sold to the Filia Compania Naviera SA of Greece on the 22nd of April 1974 and renamed Anangel Friendship. Scrapped at Kaohsiung, Taiwan in 1984, work commenced in the August.
ORISSA.
Built: 1964 by Lithgow’s Ltd., Port Glasgow.
Tonnage: 39,035 g, 23,716 nt, 63,075 dwt.
Engine: Single screw, 10 x cylinder 2S.C.SA. Burmeister & Wain by J.G. Kincaid & Co. Ltd., Greenock, 20,700 BHP, 16.25 knots.
Launched 6th of October 1964, completed April 1965, Yard No. 1152.
Orissa is a province of Eastern India on the Bay of Bengal.
Launched for Trident Tankers and management transferred to P&O Bulk Shipping Division on the 16th of August 1971. Orissa’s builders, Lithgow’s, had, along with Trident’s Technical Department been experimenting at the National Physical Laboratory the concept of bulbous bows versus Lithgow’s own design for larger ships which later became known as Ram Bows. Bulbous bows were all very well on the smaller faster ships where savings of up to 11% could be achieved, but on the larger vessels such as tankers and bulk carriers no such saving could be made. In reshaping the bow, giving it a flatter more scalloped profile tests showed no significant improvement when loaded, yet when in ballast savings of seven per cent, or in Orissa’s case the equivalent of five tons of fuel a day were achieved. As tankers and the like spent as much as fifty per cent of their careers in ballast the overhaul savings to companies is considered to be considerable in monetary terms.
Ownership transferred to P&O.S.N. Co., on the 27th of September 1972. A remarkably short career for the group as she was sold out of the fleet to Fronsis Shipping of Greece and renamed Anangel Prudence in March of 1974. Sold for breaking in 1984 and arrived at Kaohsiung on the 18th of July, work commenced on the 27th.
Hain-Nourse was selected to manage this type of ship and took the delivery of its first, the 39,277 dwt., Atherstone in April of the following year, Fernie was to follow two years later. Fernie was to have been built at Fairfields Govan shipyard, but due to the company’s collapse was instead built by Mitsui Zosen in Japan, even when taking into consideration the time lost during Fairfields travails the Japanese yard still managed to deliver Fernie before the scheduled delivery date of the British yard.
DUHALLOW.
Built: 1966 by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. Ltd., Glasgow.
Tonnage: 25,368 g, 16,219 nt, 43,234 dwt.
Engine : Single screw, 7 x cylinder 2S.C.SA. Burmeister & Wain by J.G. Kincaid & Co. Ltd., Greenock, 14,500 BHP, 15.5 knots.
Launched 26th October 1965, completed March 1966, Yard No. 828.
Duhallow is named after a hunt located in Cork, Ireland.
A Hunt class bulk carrier Duhallow was completed for Charter Shipping with Hain-Nourse as managers. Her management was transferred to P&O Bulk Shipping on the 16th of August 1971. Yet another short-lived ship she was sold to Mogul Line of India in August of 1974 and renamed Jana Vijay. Sold for breaking at Alang, work commenced on the 7th of February 1985.
In November of 1966, Eridge the Groups first Ore/Bulk/Oil Carrier entered service with Trident Tankers being appointed managers, two others, Heythrop and Grafton soon followed a year later. The three ships, although OBO’s, were classed as tankers, so therefore were managed by Trident Tankers as opposed to Hain-Nourse.
HEYTHROP.
© P & O Collection
Built: 1967 by Hitachi Zosen, Sakai, Japan.
Tonnage: 43,330 g, 27,029 nt, 73,800 dwt.
Engine : Single screw, 9 x cylinder, 2S.C.SA Burmeister & Wain by Hitachi SB & E, Osaka, 20,700 BHP, 15.5 knots.
Launched 26th March 1967, completed 30th June 1967, Yard No. 4105.
Heythrop Hunt is based at Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire.
Launched and completed for Trident Tankers and transferred to P&O Bulk Shipping in August of 1971. Three months later an explosion blew the hatch covers off number eleven hold whilst the crew were tank cleaning when on passage Hampton Roads to the Gulf, 150 miles off East London, South Africa on the 9th of November. The resulting fire was brought under control but re-ignited when the rolling of Heythrop caused the foam blanket to break down through contact with the ships side. This time however the fire spread to the accommodation and the ship had to be evacuated. As rescue vessels arrived a small party of crew led by the ship’s Captain re-boarded Heythrop and successfully managed to bring the accommodation fire under control, the hold fire was allowed to burn itself out. Arrived at Port Elizabeth on the 15th November where repairs were carried out, twelve weeks later she returned to service. Sold out of the fleet on the 21st August 1978 and became Trade Ocean for Trade Sea Inc. of Greece. Arrived at Beilun, China for breaking at the end of November 1983.
In 1970 P&O commissioned the firm of Mckinsey & Co., a firm of management consultants to reorganise the groups companies, over one hundred subsidiaries into a more cognisant entity and to this end McKinsey presented its proposals in the October of the same year. This entailed the formation of five large group company divisions to be known as Bulk Shipping, Passenger, General Cargo, European and Air Transport and finally General Holdings. This was to be come known throughout P&O’s employees as the ‘October Revolution’. Sir Donald Anderson the Group Chairman stated on behalf of the board:
“We believe that these measures are a logical development of the changes which have been taking place over the past ten years and will enable the Group to direct and co-ordinate its activities more effectively and meet the pressing problem of greatly increased costs.”
This single action was to change the face of British mercantile history forever; world famous shipping companies were to disappear forever except in books and the collective memories of those that are still alive today. Some of those company’s involved, eighteen in total, had been known throughout the maritime community for over a hundred years or more, and included the likes of Frank Strick, Hain, Nourse, British India, Orient, New Zealand Shipping & Federal, General Steam Navigation, Union, Coast Line, Anchor Shipping & Foundry, Moss Hutchison, the list is endless but of course included the recently, in shipping terms, Trident Tankers. As of September 1971 the P&O combined fleet stood at 239 ships of which seventeen were tankers, six were bulk carriers and three were oil/bulk/ore, on order were three more OBO’s, three LPG, one ore/oil and one bulk carrier. P&O Bulk also had an interest in vegetable oil carriers, chemical carriers and an LNG ship.
The P&O Bulk Shipping Division, or “BSD” as it became known took over the operation and management of both Trident Tankers and Hain-Nourse, it also assumed control over the division’s investments in Associated Bulk Carriers, Panocean and Mundo Gas, the latter concern, an LPG operator that P&O had taken a thirty per cent interest in 1970.
In August of 1971 P&O Bulk Shipping became an entity in its own right, some six weeks before the other Divisions and Gazana, a liquefied gas tanker, launched by Cammell Laird & Co in Birkenhead in the May of the same year became the Divisions first ship to wear its new distinctive livery.
GAZANA.
© P & O Collection
Built: 1972 by Cammell Laird & Co. S&B Ltd., Birkenhead.
Tonnage: 21,357 g, 11,528 nt, 23,869 dwt.
Engine: Single screw, 8 x cylinder 2S.C.SA. Burmeister & Wain by J.G. Kincaid & Co. Ltd., Greenock, 15,000 BHP, 16.25 knots.
Launched 24th May 1971, completed 28th February 1972, Yard No. 1341.
Gazana is a town in the North West Frontier, now in Pakistan, now known as Gazan, there is another in West Bengal.
Gazana was the Groups first gas carrier and her cargo was either liquid petroleum or liquid ammonia. OMSA of Genoa, Italy changed her cargo carrying capacity in 1980 to facilitate the carriage of vinyl chloride monomer. Registered under Gazana Ltd., with P&O Ship Management Ltd., as managers on the 3rd of May 1985 and changed again to LNG Carriers Ltd in the December of the same year. Sold to Verdmont Co. Ltd., of Bermuda on the 3rd of October 1986 and renamed Havjarl, her current whereabouts are unknown.
GAMBADA.
© I. Lovie
Built: 1973 by Cammell Laird & Co. (SB&E) Ltd., Birkenhead.
Tonnage: 21,357 g, 11,I89 nt, 22,363 dwt.
Engine: Single screw, 8 x cylinder 2S.C.SA Burmeister & Wain by J.G. Kincaid & Co., Greenock., 15,000 BHP, 16.5 knots.
Launched 12th July 1972, completed 2nd March 1973, Yard No. 1342.
Gambada is a village in the Ladakh District, Kashmir.
Completed for the Group with P&O Bulk Shipping Division as managers. Converted for the carriage of propylene oxide and vinyl chloride monomer in 1980 and later registered under Gambada Gas Carriers Ltd., in May of 1985. Sold to Spurling Co. Ltd of Bermuda in 1986 and renamed Hesiod, her current whereabouts is unknown.
The seventies and early eighties saw massive diversification within the Division with less dependence placed on crude oil tankers, the groups final tanker, British Trident was completed in 1974 and more emphasis placed on product, gas and bulk carriers. To this end BSD undertook joint operations with Nedlloyd, also a fifty per cent interest was acquired in Zapata Ness, bulk operators and subsequently renamed Anglo Nordic, this enterprise added a further 2.25 million tons of tonnage available for charter, both taking place in 1973, however with a world collapse in both crude oil sales and bulk transport requirements in 1975/6 this venture was reduced to just seven ships by 1980. In 1976 they took control of Tate & Lyle’s Anco parcel tanker services, the operation becoming known as Panocean Anco. The downturn in world oil/bulk requirements coincided with a similar pattern in liquefied gas demand and the groups Chairman issued a warning in the 1977 Annual Report in response to its spiralling building costs:
“Although the gas fleet has been fully employed it has been at relatively low rates. Our current commitments in this area is out of balance and we are investigating a number of options to correct the position.”
GARINDA.
© Thyssen Nordseewerke
Built: 1977 by Thyssen Nordseewerke G.m.b.H., Emden, West Germany.
Tonnage: 34,895 g, 22,916 nt, 41,683 dwt.
Engine: Single screw, 6 x cylinder 2S.C.SA., by Masch, Augsburg, West Germany, 19,924 BHP, 16.75 knots.
Launched 12th June 1976, completed 31st March 1977, Yard No 459.
Gharinda is a town in Bangladesh.
Completed for Orient Steam Navigation Co. Ltd with P&O Bulk Shipping Division as managers. Transferred to P&O.S.N. on the 31st of December 1984 and transferred to Garinda Ltd in the May of the following year, seven months later she was transferred to LNG Carriers Ltd. Sold to Portland Co. Ltd of Bermuda on the 3rd of October 1986 but wasn’t renamed as Hekabe until the 3rd of January the following year. Her current whereabouts is unknown.
From a Group fleet of 181 ships at the end of 1971 the number of ships operated had fallen to just 132 by 1976, by years end 1981 it had fallen further to just 78 and Lord Inchcape issued the following warning in the December report of 1982.
“It is a sad but inevitable fact that our shipping interests now represent less than fifty per cent of our total assets”.
All Group interest in Mundo Gas was sold to its operating partner, Thyssen Bornemesza in January of 1984, however it retained its fleet of nine LPG ships until the following May when it sold fifty per cent of its interests to the New York based company Overseas Shipholding, the joint venture becoming P&O Gas Carriers, four ships were transferred to Overseas Shipholding, four retained by P&O with the ninth, Gambhira being jointly owned. In 1986 the combined operation was sold to Kvaerner of Norway bringing to a close P&O’s involvement in transport of Gas.
ORMOND.
Built: 1986 by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., Nagasaki, Japan.
Tonnage: 96,659 g, 60,417 nt, 187,025 dwt.
Engine: Single screw, 6 x cylinder 2S.C.SA. Sulzer by Mitsubishi H.I. Ltd., Kobe, Japan, 18,394 BHP.
Launched 29th November 1985, completed11th March 1986, Yard No.1971.
In current Zodiac Fleet.
In 1986 the Group took delivery of the Japanese built Ormond and with the demise of the General Cargo Division restyled its P&O Bulk Carriers into P&O Bulk Shipping and by 1989 the fleet stood at six bulk carriers with a further two on order and three tankers. Over the following eight years P&O continued to modernise its fleet, even through difficult trading conditions and in 1997 announced a joint venture with a Chinese industrial group, Shougang, reverting to its former name of Associated Bulk Carriers. The equally owned partnership operated one of the world’s largest independent ‘Capesize’ bulk carriers and as world charter rates improved P&O acquired the fifty per cent interest held by Shougang in April of 2000 simultaneously announcing that it intended to float ABC on the Oslo Stock Exchange.
MEYNELL.
Completed on the 10th of January 1997.
Tonnage: 93,629 g, 60,041 nt, 185,767 dwt.
Engine: Single screw, 7 x cylinder 2S.C.SA. Burmeister & Wain, 21,650 BHP, 13.75 knots. Prop 8.7 m diameter.
In current Zodiac Fleet.
In 2000/1 P&O announced it had agreed to sell 50% of its holdings in Associated Bulk Carriers to Eurotower Holdings SA which forms part of the SAMAMA Group, a private group of shipping companies that operates worldwide and who’s ownership rests with a discretionary trust, primary beneficiaries of the trust are the Ofer family. The commercial and technical operations of the then new enterprise are to be transferred to Zodiac Maritime Agencies of London; a number of ABC’s employees would be transferred. At the time of the sale ABC’s fleet stood at 22 vessels at an average age of seven years varying in weight from 114,000 tons to 211,000 tons, with the nine ships already managed by Zodiac it would bring the total tonnage under management to 5 million tons.
Sir Bruce MacPhail, MD of P&O said: “We are delighted to be working with the SAMAMA Group and Zodiac. Their significant interests and long experience in Capesize dry bulk shipping combined with ABC will make a real force in the market. This partnership will enable P&O to manage the transition out of what is now a non-core business for the Group as we move forward.”
As of 2003 the fleet under P&O Zodiac management stood at:
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