MARAMA 1907

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aukepalmhof
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MARAMA 1907

Post by aukepalmhof » Fri May 15, 2020 8:27 pm

Built as a passenger-cargo vessel under yard no 313 by Caird & Company, Greenock, Scotland for Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand, Dunedin, New Zealand,
27 June 1907 launched as the MARAMAR.
Tonnage 6,437 grt, 3,952 net, dim. 128.0 bpp x 16.2 x 9.5m.
Powered by two 4-cyl. triple expansion steam engines, manufactured by the builder, 692 nhp, twin shafts, service speed 17 knots.
Accommodation for 229 first, 79 second, and 153 third-class passengers.
September 1907 completed. The building cost £166.000, homeport Wellington.

28 September 1907 sailed on her maiden voyage from Glasgow and via Cape Town she sailed to Melbourne where she arrived on 30 October, thereafter she proceeded to Dunedin where she arrived on 04 November.
She was then put in the Trans-Tasman (horseshoe) service between New Zealand and Australia.
After three months in this service, she was transferred to the Trans-Pacific service. She stayed in this service till World War I broke out in August 1914.
1914 After her return in New Zealand she was requisitioned by the New Zealand Government, to be refitted in a hospital ship. The refit did not take place and she was handed back to owners, who put her back in the Trans-Pacific service in January 1915. This time from Sydney- Wellington to Rarotonga then to Tahiti and San Francisco.
Made four round voyages in this service before for the second time she was requisitioned by the New Zealand Government in September 1915. She was sent to Port Chalmers, New Zealand for a refit in a hospital ship by the Union Line personnel there, which she completed in 23 days. She was thereafter a hospital ship with 600 beds.
04 December 1915 she sailed from Wellington, hull painted white with a green band, bound for Great Britain. In the next four years, she made eight voyages between Great Britain and New Zealand.
After return to owners, she was sent to Vancouver for a refit in a passenger ship. Her engines were refitted from coal to oil firing.
June 1920 again in the Trans-Pacific service for the next two years when she was replaced with the MAUNGANUI, and she was placed in the Trans-Tasman service, the service she was originally built, When in the Trans-Pacific service one of the regular ships needed docking and repair she was the next eight years the reserve vessel and took over the service.
19 April 1930 she made her last voyage from San Francisco, whereafter she only was used in the Trans-Tasman service.
1936 After she was replaced with a new ship, she was laid up, but in June she came in the ferry service between Wellington and Lyttelton after the regular vessels needed repair.
18 August she was again laid up and put up for sale.
In August 1937 she was sold to Lunghua Dock & Engineering Works Ltd., Shanghai.
10 September 1937 she left Wellington for the last time and via Port Stephens for her last voyage to China.
After arrival there, she has resold to Miyachi Kisen KK a Japanese shipbreaker, and she sailed to Osaka, where she was scrapped during 1938.

Wikipedia gives:
The SS MARAMA was an ocean liner belonging to the Union Company of New Zealand from 1907 to 1937. It was a hospital ship in WWI as His Majesty's New Zealand Hospital Ship No. 2.

History
Built by Caird & Company at Greenock at a cost of £166,000 ($332,000), the SS MARAMA arrived at Port Chalmers in November 1907. It was the largest and most powerful ship (though not the fastest) in the USS Co fleet. Initially, it sailed on the Horseshoe run to Australia, and occasionally in trans-Pacific services. After the war service, it was refitted (1920) for the trans-Pacific services to San Francisco or Vancouver. In 1925, it was converted to burn oil, and employed on the Tasman run.
The ship was sold to Shanghai shipbreakers the Linghua Dock & Engineering Works Ltd in 1937, then resold to Kobe shipbreakers Miyachi K.K.K. (who had also purchased the MAHENO) and was broken up at their Osaka shipyard in 1938.
MARAMA Hall at the University of Otago is named after the liner, commemorating medical personnel who served aboard the two New Zealand hospital ships in World War I
More on her history is given on: http://ssmaritime.com/MARAMA.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_MARAMA Passenger ships of Australia & New Zealand by Peter Plowman.
Guinea Bissau 2020 1100 FCFA sg?, scott?
Attachments
MARAMA Hospital_Ship_Marama_off_Sinclair_Head.jpg
2020 marama (2).jpg

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