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BELTANA (1912)
Service dates: 1912-1930
Official number: 131853
Shipping lines: P&O BRANCH LINE; P&O STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY
Ship type:
Passenger Liner.
Career
- 24.01.1912
- Launched. She broke adrift while completing and caused considerable damage.
- 25.04.1912
- Registered.
- 05.1912
- Delivered as Beltana for The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company at a cost of £179,365. Beltana was a town in the east of South Australia.
- 09.07.1912
- Maiden voyage from London, delayed for nearly 4 weeks by a transport workers’ strike.
- 1914/1917
- Served as an Imperial and Australian troop transport.
- 10.1917
- Requisitioned for trans-Atlantic service where she carried munitions and supplies.
- 1919
- Returned to the Branch Line although she was no match for the newer vessels in accommodation or economy.
- 05.1922
- Re-measured. 11,167 grt, 6,974 nrt.
- 06.1927
- Minor collision with the steamer Clyde in Sydney Harbour.
- 30.08.1927
- Beached in the Thames after colliding with the steamer Torrington.
- 1928
- Brought to the UK the greater part of the crews of the new Royal Australian Navy cruisers Australia and Canberra.
- 02.1929
- Re-measured. 11,220 grt, 7,126 nrt.
- 05.1929
- Helped search, without success, for the missing Danish sailing ship Kobenhavn in the Indian Ocean. Thereafter spent much of the time laid up at Southend.
- 02.07.1929
- One return voyage on the new secondary Australian service via the Mediterranean.
- 28.07.1929
- Management and operation transferred from P&O Branch Line to The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company.
- 31.03.1930
- Sold for £27,000 to Toyo Hogei Kabushiki Kaisha, Japan for conversion for the whaling trade. She was not renamed, being laid up in Japan. She never traded under the Japanese flag.
- 1933
- Sold to Gentaro Kasegawa, Kobe for demolition.