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BENDIGO (1954)
Service dates: 1954-1972
Official number: 186152
Shipping lines: P&O STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY; P&O ORIENT LINE; P&O LINES; P&O GENERAL CARGO DIVISION
Ship type:
General Cargo Liner.
Career
- 05.1951
- Ordered.
- 08.06.1953
- Keel laid.
- 12.08.1954
- Launched by Mrs Malcolm Millar, wife of one of P&O’s General Managers.
- 23.11.1954
- Ran trials.
- 25.11.1954
- Registered and delivered as Bendigo for The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. She was fitted with an 80-ton heavy-lift derrick. Designed for wool trade with her sister Ballarat. Bendigo is a city in Victoria, Australia; originally a gold mining centre, and it was at one time intended to name one of P&O’s pre-First World War emigrant ships Bendigo, but she was delivered in 1912 as Beltana instead. She left the yard for Middlesbrough to load cargo the same day.
- 1956
- Carried the Olympic Flame mechanism used in London in 1948 to Melbourne.
- 05.1960
- Management and operation transferred to P&O-Orient Lines.
- 1966
- Managers and operators restyled P&O Lines.
- 11.10.1968
- Transferred to the Far Eastern service and renamed Pando Sound.
- 01.10.1971
- Management and operation transferred to P&O General Cargo Division.
- 1972
- Sold to T W Ward Ltd for demolition.
- 11.05.1972
- Sailed from Swansea for Briton Ferry, arriving later that day. Sundry items were removed but demolition did not commence until mid-September.
- 13.02.1974
- Moorings parted during a storm and the vessel was blown broadside across the River Neath. The hulk was only removed with considerable difficulty.