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SOMERSET (1946)
Service dates: 1946-1967
Official number: 180927
Shipping lines: FEDERAL STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY; P&O STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY
Ship type:
Refrigerated Cargo Liner.
Career
- 21.03.1946
- Launched.
- 11.09.1946
- Delivered as Somerset to the Federal Steam Navigation Company at a cost of £452,000. She and her sister Devon, built on the lines of the New Zealand Shipping Company’s Papanui class, were fitted with steam turbines because of wartime difficulties over diesel installations, and Somerset was notable for her extensive use of butt-welding in place of rivets.
- 18.09.1946
- Left Glasgow.
- 04.12.1951
- Collided with cruiser HMAS Australia at Sydney, inward bound from the UK.
- 12.11.1954
- Renamed Aden.
- 17.11.1954
- Management and operation transferred to The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. Employed primarily on P&O’s UK/Australia cargo services.
- 06.1956
- Inaugurated a new P&O Far East cargo service from Grangemouth.
- 03.09.1963
- Mainmast snapped at its base at Wynyard Wharf, Auckland, killing a waterside worker.
- 1965
- First P&O ship to enter the Great Lakes, on the MANZ (Montreal/ Australia/New Zealand) service.
- 02.10.1967
- Sold to Mitsui & Co, Tokyo, for scrap, for £105,575.
- 08.10.1967
- Arrived at Kaohsiung for demolition by Nan Tay Industries Co Ltd.