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KENT (1918)
Service dates: 1918-1955
Official number: 142611
Shipping lines: FEDERAL STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY
Ship type:
Refrigerated Cargo Liner.
Career
- 14.12.1917
- Launched.
- 08.08.1918
- Delivered as Kent for the Federal Steam Navigation Company.
- 08.08.1918/04.04.1919
- Taken up under the Liner Requisition Scheme.
- 12.08.1918
- Missed by a torpedo, probably from U113, in the North Sea.
- 1924
- Converted to oil fuel.
- 03.09.1925
- Suffered a fire in No.2 hold at Auckland. The hold was flooded and the fire extinguished on the 4th.
- 21.04.1926
- Grounded at Suez.
- 09.10.1927
- Collided with the breakwater at New Plymouth, damaging her bow.
- 29.06.1934
- Grounded at Port Alma.
- 25.03.1936
- Collided with the steamer Amble at Gravesend.
- 10.06.1936
- Suffered an engine breakdown in Kandavu Passage, bound Liverpool to Dunedin. She drifted for 2 days close to Mbenga Reef before limping into Suva.
- 14.06.1940/18.04.1946
- Requisitioned for the Liner Division.
- 1940
- Took the Dutch Crown Jewels to the US for safety.
- 1941/1942
- Carried stores to Australian forces in Singapore, Port Said and Haifa.
- 11.06.1942
- Picked up 35 crew from the torpedoed steamer American off Honduras and landed them at Colon three days later.
- 21.09.1942
- Collided with the motorship Fernwood while both ships were at anchor in New York.
- 10.07.1943
- Suffered an engineroom fire at Melbourne.
- 02.12.1943
- Collided with the steamer Empire Moonrise on leaving New York for Wellington.
- 10.12.1944
- Collided with the Northumberland at London.
- 16.01.1945
- Mainmast collapsed and was replaced at London.
- 1948
- Her Chief Refrigerated Engineer was lost overboard at Wyndham, North Australia, and presumed eaten by crocodiles. This was confirmed when his signet ring was recovered from a dead crocodile some months later.
- 16.08.1955
- Arrived at Blyth, having been sold to British Iron & Steel Corporation and allocated to Hughes Bolckow Shipbreaking Co Ltd for demolition there.