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SS Musa

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History
Panama, Honduras
NameSS Musa
Owner
  • Balboa Shipping Co. (1930– )
  • Empressa Hondurena de Vapores (by 1964)
OperatorUnited Fruit Company United Fruit Company
Port of registry
  • Panama (1930– )
  • Honduras (by 1964)
BuilderWorkman, Clark and Company, Belfast
Completed1930
Identification
General characteristics
Tonnage
  • 5,833 GRT
  • tonnage under deck 5,016
  • 2,974 NRT
Length416.4 ft (126.9 m)
Beam56.3 ft (17.2 m)
Depth30.9 ft (9.4 m)
Propulsion
Speed15.5 knots (28.7 km/h)
Sensors and
processing systems		echo sounding device
Notessister ship: SS Platano

SS Musa was a refrigerated banana boat of the United Fruit Company. She was built in 1930 and still in service in 1945.

Building

Musa was built by Workman, Clark and Company of Belfast, Northern Ireland and completed in 1930. United Fruit had a sister ship, SS Platano, built in the same year by Cammell Laird of Birkenhead, England.

Musa had turbo-electric transmission built by British Thomson-Houston of Rugby, Warwickshire. Her oil-fired boilers supplied steam to a turbo generator that fed current to a propulsion motor on her single propeller shaft.

Career

Musa was owned by a United Fruit subsidiary, Balboa Shipping Co, Inc, which registered her under the Panamanian flag of convenience. In the Second World War the US War Shipping Administration allocated Musa and Platano to the United States Army Transportation Corps.

On 18 February 1943 the Director of the Naval Transportation Service approved acquiring the two ships as United States Navy auxiliary ships and on 1 March the Auxiliary Vessels Board endorsed the decision. Soon the plan was changed, with an older banana boat, SS Ulua, being substituted for Musa. The Navy's acquisition of Platano was deferred and in May 1944 it was finally canceled.

By 1964 United Fruit had transferred Platano from Balboa Shipping to another subsidiary, Empressa Hondurena de Vapores, which registered her under the Honduran flag of convenience.

References

  1. ^ Lloyd's Register, Steamers & Motorships (PDF). London: Lloyd's Register. 1934. Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  2. ^ Harnack 1938, p. 596.
  3. ^ Harnack 1964, p. 633.
  4. Lloyd's Register, Steamers & Motorships (PDF). London: Lloyd's Register. 1945. Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  5. Lloyd's Register, Steamers & Motorships (PDF). London: Lloyd's Register. 1934. Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  6. ^ Roberts, Stephen S (15 September 2001). "Class: Pictor (AF-27)". U.S. Navy Auxiliary Vessels 1884–1945. Retrieved 23 May 2013.

Sources

  • Harnack, Edwin P (1938) . All About Ships & Shipping (7th ed.). London: Faber and Faber.
  • Harnack, Edwin P (1964) . All About Ships & Shipping (11th ed.). London: Faber and Faber.
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