SS Rhodesia Star

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

My first ship – London – Australia – Liverpool in 1961! Drawing by myself –

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Is that a war built standard ship Bob?

Colin

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Yes. Laid down as a standard C3 cargo ship, but completed as an Escort carrier, USS Estero. Then renamed USS Premier Lease/lent to the Royal Nay as HMS Premier. Converted to a cargo liner in 1948 for the Blue Star Line as Rhodesia Star. Here is the full career of the ship – very interesting – Eventually, the Blue Star Line ruined the ship's looks to a great extent by sticking a pipe in the top of the funnel, That was not there when I was, so I left it off the drawing.

Bob

**LINK**

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

My father used to work for Blue Star at one point as a shore based salesman in the late 60s. He once came home with a pile of large old ship photographs of Blue Star vessel's passenger areas from the days of 12 passengers and I can remember very clearly how luxurious they looked. Apparently they were one of the best for passengers and were well supported.

Many years later, around mid 80's, I then sailed out of H&W on a new build British Steel ore carrier to do the sea trials and straight on to her maiden voyage and, as we left the yard, we sailed past a couple of the last Blue Star vessels to be built. I think there were five in the class, refrigerated cargo ships, but they had definitely lost the traditional beauty of the lines of these ships.

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

Posted by Bob Wilson on 24/10/2021 09:02:54:

Yes. Laid down as a standard C3 cargo ship, but completed as an Escort carrier, USS Estero. Then renamed USS Premier Lease/lent to the Royal Nay as HMS Premier. Converted to a cargo liner in 1948 for the Blue Star Line as Rhodesia Star. Here is the full career of the ship – very interesting – Eventually, the Blue Star Line ruined the ship's looks to a great extent by sticking a pipe in the top of the funnel, That was not there when I was, so I left it off the drawing.

Bob

**LINK**

A common practise at the time Bob to try to keep the soot off the aft decks, which was always a concern with steamships and early diesels. Particularly of concern when you had passengers on board and their restaurant opened out onto an aft deck.

You still get complaints nowadays from the deck department if there is too much soot on the deck and they have to wash it off, although modern common rail diesel engines produce very little soot. Every night though the practise of 'sootblowing' still occurs and, if the job has not been coordinated to get the wind across the decks, there can still be a significant sootfall.

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Thanks for the link Bob. It made very interesting reading.

Colin

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

I know the excuse they gave about the pipe for the smoke. But in the Rhodesia Star, I was never ware of any smoke or soot coming down on the decks. The ship was over 20 years old before they fitted it anyway! I also sailed in a further six steamers: Transvaal Castle, Windsor Castle, Pretoria Castle, Edinburgh Castle, Pendennis Castle and Reina del Mar, none of which had anything sticking out of their funnels and only two of them suffered a bit from smoke and soot when blowing tubes. They were the two older ones, Edinburgh Castle and Pretoria Castle (1948 vintage) . The smoke usually descended on the tourist decks aft, but there was always time to go inside as soon as the smoke began as the funnel was in full view from all the tourist decks. New builds in the 70s seemed to consider it some sort of competition as to how many pipes and tubes they could have sticking out of their funnels, but really, they could have just made the funnels a bit taller to hide them all Then ship designers then took to sticking masts down funnels that I always thought was ridiculous after spending so many hours replacing melted wiring to the radar scanners and direction finding loops.

Bob

PS Good Hope Castle – How I hated that funnel and mast!

Edited By Bob Wilson on 24/10/2021 11:09:26

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

Just something to make you smile Bob.

When I was a youngster of around five years old and my father was at sea, as with most kids all I wanted to do was be at sea like my Dad. Consequently I spent all my time drawing pictures of ships and incessantly talking about them. Unfortunately my artistic talents had not started to develop so my take on a ship always had a very box like shape to the accommodation as that was all I could draw. Every time my father came home he would explain how a ship really looked and would try to get me away from the dreaded box and a little closer to reality.

Many years later when I had finished my first two years training I went to join my first ship at Smith's Dock in Middlesborough. I could not believe the sight that greeted me as I walked down the quayside to join her and, of course, I couldn't wait to inform my Dad what she looked like!

Needless to say my Dad never considered it a 'proper' ship!

 

Edited By Richard Simpson on 24/10/2021 13:34:47

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

It still looked a lot better than what is coming out now. If I was leaving school today, I wouldn't even consider going to sea, but with no O or A levels, I would probably not be accepted anyway – All this flying out to join, and back home again at the end of it would have put me off as well. I preferred to join in UK, and leave in UK. Did two years in the cross trades, 1977 – 1979 and hated the flying. The old ships were not always very comfortable, but technically well within my level of capability. This was one of my favourites, iron ore carrier Sagamore, carrying iron ore for British steel from Sweden, Spain, North Africa, West Africa, Canada and South America to Newport, Cardiff, Birkenhead, Glasgow, South Shields.

Bob

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

And my last ship – RMS St Helena (II) brand new in 1990. Stuffed full of so much electronic junk that it nearly drove me mad, so took voluntary redundancy after two years, and never regretted it! (I didn't make the model, it was professionally built, but they dropped it and the company asked me to repair it)

Bob

Edited By Bob Wilson on 24/10/2021 15:09:49

[redpmgParticipant @redpmg]

Ironic in that a ship named after my home country in Africa was used for carrying emigrants to Australia……. Her history as an Escort Carrier was a very interesting read .

Another ship of the Blue Star line disappeared without trace off the coast of South Africa near East London in 1909 – her name was the Waratah – named after a shrub in Australia !

Great drawing of an interesting ship Bob – presume you will be making a model of her ?

 

Edited By redpmg on 24/10/2021 15:32:40

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Waratah was a ship of the Blue Anchor line. Blue Star line was not founded until 1911.

The loss of Waratah was featured in Clive Cussler's novel 'Ghost Ship'. Cussler in fact was involved in attempts to find the wreck.

Colin

Edited By Colin Bishop on 24/10/2021 16:12:36

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

The Rhodesia Star didn't carry emigrants to Australia though, we only had 12 passengers. The emigrants went in much bigger ships, like passenger liners. Some of our passengers just seemed to prefer traveling in cargo ships. The Blue Star Line ships were named after various countries. Our sister ship was South Africa Star. There were all sorts of names, Patagonia, Wellington, Auckland, Andalucia, Argentina, New York, Columbia, and many others, all ending in Star.

As Colin say, Waratah, was Blue Anchor Line and disappeared off the South African coast in the early 1900s with over 200 passengers aboard. Never heard from again. In fact, the last passenger liner to disappear.

No, I will not be building a model of the Rhodesia Star. I am very much winding down these days, as I am now 77! And I haven't got many happy memories of the ship. The ship was OK, but a small number of my fellow officers left no stone un-turned in their efforts to make life miserable fro me. I decided to give it one more go before throwing it all in. My next ship was Houlder Brothers Joya McCance, that was a great improvement, and caused me to stay at sea for another 30 years.. Even the colliers were better than Rhodesia Star as far as quality of life was concerned.

I have built Rhodesia Star in the past, (See below) but I will not be making another! I drew the new plan up because I got some more up-to-date information on it that enabled me to make a much more accurate plan than my original.

Bob

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