A total of ten Furness Line cargo-liners with ‘Pacific’ prefixes to their names operated in the inter-war years to the Pacific coasts of the United States and Canada, followed by a new sextet of cargo-liners with ‘Pacific’ names in post-war years during a ten year period from 1948 to 1958. At the end of World War I, rapid strides were being made to open up trade using the newly opened Panama Canal between the Northwest coasts of Canada and the United States and Europe. Much refrigerated fruit as well as timber and grain was offering homewards, and the first Furness Line ship to start a regular service was Mongolian Prince of Prince Line when she loaded in the Pacific in September 1921. This service then became fortnightly using London Exchange ex Persiana, London Corporation ex Cynthiana, London Mariner ex Feliciana, London Shipper, and London Merchant as well as some chartered in ships from Manchester Liners Ltd until purpose built vessels were delivered.

The Pre-War ‘Pacifics’

These were completed or began Pacific operation between 1924 and 1929 as Pacific Shipper, Pacific Trader, Pacific Commerce, Pacific Enterprise, Pacific Reliance, Pacific Exporter, Pacific Pioneer, Pacific Grove, Pacific President, and Pacific Ranger. Seven of these cargoliners had excellent accommodation for a dozen passengers for their long distance service, while the first three sisters, Pacific Shipper, Pacific Trader and Pacific Commerce, had accommodation for ten passengers. Boat Deck had the two berth and single berth cabins complete with washbasins, mahogany furniture and cane easy chairs, while Promenade Deck had all of the public rooms. These consisted of an oak panelled Entrance Hall leading to the Dining Saloon, Smoking Room and Ladies’ Room. The Dining Saloon had tables set for six, four or two passengers and was panelled in light oak with alcoves to give an intimate atmosphere for the small select number of passengers. The Smoking Room had bookcases, various attractive wood veneer panelling and leather bound comfortable armchairs and sofas. The Ladies’ Room, also known as the Social Room, had bookcases, a piano, fabric covered sofas and elegant wooden chairs and tables.

The seven twin screw sisters starting with Pacific Enterprise of December 1927 had six holds and six hatches, and she and Pacific Reliance, Pacific Exporter and Pacific Pioneer were products of the Blythswood shipyard on the Clyde. They were given twin 8-cylinder B&W type diesels of 3,800 bhp by J. G. Kincaid & Co. Ltd. of Glasgow to give a service speed of 12.5 knots. Pacific Ranger was completed by the Burmeister & Wain yard at Copenhagen in 1929, and this group of five sisters had dimensions of 455 feet length overall, 436 feet between perpendiculars, beam of 40 feet, depth of 29 feet and draft of 28 feet on 10,000 tonnes deadweight with a gross tonnage of 6,723. They had a general cargo capacity of 620,000 cubic feet and a refrigerated capacity of 125,000 cubic feet, 1,425 tonnes of bunkers, and a crew of fifty. Pacific Grove and Pacific President were products of the Deutsche Werke yard at Kiel in 1928, and were five feet shorter than their five near sisters with more powerful six cylinder diesels of 4,250 bhp, with 629,000 cubic feet of general cargo space but a smaller refrigerated capacity of 73,700 cubic feet and a gross tonnage of 7,114.

The three earlier ‘Pacific’ motor ships were products of the Doxford yard at Sunderland with four cylinder Doxford SCSA oil engines giving a service speed of 11.5 knots. Pacific Shipper was completed at Sunderland in March 1924 and Pacific Trader in May, 1924, and they joined their earlier sister Pacific Commerce, which made a maiden arrival on 3rd May 1923 at Los Angeles on the Pacific service as Dominion Miller for the Norfolk & North American Steamship Co. Ltd (Furness, Withy & Co. Ltd., managers) and she was renamed Pacific Commerce in 1925. She was of 8,960 dwt and had initially made some voyages to the East coast of North America after completion at the Doxford yard in February 1922. The two later members of this trio had a general cargo capacity of 543,000 cubic feet and a refrigerated capacity of 113,000 cubic feet and carried a crew of 45 and ten passengers. They had dimensions of length 420 feet, beam of 58 feet, depth of 28 feet and a draft of 27.2 feet, a gross tonnage of 6,300 and a deadweight of 9,500 tonnes. Diesel and oil fuel bunkers amounted to 1,141 tonnes for these pioneer Doxford four cylinder diesel engined cargo-liners, being fitted with three of the first five opposed piston Doxford oil engines ever built.

Pacific Commerce was sold in 1936 to the Brynymor Steamship Co. Ltd. (Ambrose, Davies & Matthews of Swansea, managers) without change of name, and then a year later to A/S Viking of Farsund (Lundegaard & Sonner, managers) taking the name of Norbryn. She survived World War II and arrived under this name on 14th January 1959 at Grimstad for breaking up. Pacific Trader was sold in 1938 to A/S Braganza (L. G. Braathen of Oslo, manager) and renamed Braganza and was abandoned after an explosion in her engine room 150 miles off the coast of Uruguay on 12th October 1944.

World War II Service

The Pacific fleet of Furness, Withy & Co. Ltd. consisted of eight cargo-liners on 3rd September 1939 on the outbreak of war, the seven twin-screw sisters plus Pacific Shipper of 1924. The company lost 1,078 brave men and 47 ships during this long war, and the country lost a total of 33,000 Merchant Navy seafarers. Pacific Enterprise and Pacific Exporter were the only survivors from the pre-war twin screw septet of sisters, together with the smaller Pacific Shipper. Pacific Reliance was the first to be sunk on 4th March 1940 when torpedoed ‘midships 19 miles from the Longships Light Vessel by U-29, breaking her back and sinking her within ten minutes. She was on a voyage from London to Liverpool and Manchester with general cargo and aeroplane parts and fortunately all of her crew of 53 were saved.

Pacific Ranger was one of many ships lost in convoy HX77 when attacked by three U-boats on 12th October 1940 to the east of Rockall in a homeward convoy from Seattle to Manchester with 8,235 tonnes of lumber, metal and general cargo and fortunately all of her crew were saved. Pacific Enterprise was lucky to escape the destruction and death of famous convoy HX84, when the selfless sacrifice of Capt. Fogarty Fegen RN in the Armed Merchant Cruiser Jervis Bay engaged the eleven inch guns of pocket battleship Admiral Scheer in mid-Atlantic. This magnificent action on 5th November 1940 began at 1635 hours when Jervis Bay left the centre of the convoy as soon as the battleship was sighted to the north. Capt. Fegen trailed a thick black smokescreen when he was clear of the convoy lines, all of the other ships setting off smoke flares with an emergency 40 degree turn to starboard ordered by the Convoy Commodore. Capt. Fegen was badly wounded when a shell destroyed the bridge of Jervis Bay, but he hauled himself to the rear gun to direct its fire, and the delaying tactics of nearly an hour was sufficient for many ships to escape destruction after Jervis Bay and her gallant crew had been sent to the bottom of the cold North Atlantic.

Pacific President was sunk by U-43 in outward convoy HX90 on 2nd December 1940 to the south of Iceland with all of her crew lost during her voyage from Leith and Oban to New York in ballast. Eighteen months later, Pacific Pioneer on 29th July 1942 was torpedoed and sunk by U-132 when 160 miles ESE of Halifax (NS) in an outward convoy ON113 from Cardiff and Belfast Lough to New York in ballast. Fortunately, all of her 59 crew and seven gunners were saved, but eleven people were killed when Pacific Grove was torpedoed and sunk on 12th April 1943 in homeward convoy HX232 from New York to Glasgow by U563. She was carrying 7,184 tonnes of general cargo and 1,500 tonnes of diesel and fuel oil with a crew of 47, seven gunners and sixteen passengers.

Pacific Enterprise survived the war only to be lost by stranding on 8th September 1949 at Point Arena in California. Pacific Shipper was broken up in the United Kingdom in 1950, and Pacific Exporter was sold in 1951 to Costa Line of Genoa and was renamed Giacomo C. She was not converted into a passenger liner as many of the Costa purchases were during its rapid expansion in the 1950s, but after seven years of service as a cargo ship she arrived at Savona on 20th October 1958 for scrapping.

The Post-War ‘Pacifics’

Four ‘Liberty’ types were purchased in 1947 to plug the gaps in the Furness Line Pacific fleet until new cargo-liners could be completed. They were renamed as Pacific Nomad, Pacific Liberty, Pacific Importer and Pacific Ranger. Pacific Importer sailed from Manchester in late 1947 and loaded bananas at Guayaquil in Ecuador and discharged them at San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver. Sawn timber was then loaded at Chemainus and Nanaimo on Vancouver Island for the return voyage. Pacific Liberty sailed from Manchester on 20th November 1953 and ran aground at Coos Bay during the following month. Coos Bay is to the north of San Francisco and almost 200 miles south of Astoria on the Columbia river, and has the largest natural harbour between San Francisco and Seattle and has long been a busy port. The ‘Liberty’ type was refloated badly damaged, and spent two months under repair in dry-dock at the American naval base at Cristobal and finally returned to Manchester on 9th May 1954 after a six month voyage.

The new cargo-liners were completed as Pacific Fortune of 1948, Pacific Unity of 1948, Pacific Reliance (2) of 1951, Pacific Northwest of 1954, Pacific Envoy of 1958, and Pacific Stronghold of 1958. The first letter of their names spelt the owners name of ‘FURNESS’, suggesting that a seventh sister with a name beginning ‘S’ had been planned to replace the seven twin screw sisters of the pre-war period. This vessel was not ordered as there were enough cargo-liners in the Royal Mail Line, also part of the Furness, Withy Group and running to the same ports, to supply additional tonnage if needed. The first vessel, Pacific Fortune, came from the Clydeside yard of Blythswood Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. while her sister Pacific Unity came from the Sunderland yard of Sir James Laing & Sons Ltd. The Walker Naval Yard at Newcastle upon Tyne completed the remaining four sisters between 1951 and 1958. Pacific Fortune and Pacific Unity had goalpost masts at their fo’c’tles with a heavy lift derrick on the foremast, and derricks on the mainmast and four other pairs of kingposts. Pacific Reliance and Pacific Northwest had similar masts and derricks, while the last pair of Tyne built sisters in 1958, Pacific Envoy and Pacific Stronghold, had a good array of derricks on a goalpost mast and six sets of kingposts arranged at the five holds. This pair also had a signal mast with a telescopic lowerable topmast between two kingposts behind the bridge, which had to be lowered when going up the Manchester Ship Canal.

As with the pre-war twin screw septet, the post war sextet had two decks for the twelve passengers, with the single and double berth cabins on the Boat Deck, and all of the public rooms on the Promenade Deck. There were four lifeboats on Boat Deck, and the near sisters were powered by three sets of Parsons steam turbines taking steam from Yarrow water tube boilers to give a service speed of 15.5 knots. Their deadweight was 10,690 tonnes on a draft of 28.6 feet, and 11,420 tonnes on a draft of 29.7 feet, and their principal dimensions were length overall of 497 feet, length between perpendiculars of 470 feet, moulded beam of 63.2 feet and moulded depth of 41 feet. The sextet were handsome cargo-liners that were more than able to make a good profit from the buoyant trade to the Pacific Northwest coasts.

The ‘Pacifics’ In Service

The 8,714 nautical mile voyage from Manchester and Glasgow to Vancouver in British Columbia took just over one month with calls at Cristobal at the Caribbean entrance to the Panama Canal, Balboa on the Pacific side of the Canal, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland (Oregon), Seattle, Victoria on Vancouver Island and Vancouver. After sailing from the Manchester Ship Canal and clearing the southern part of the Irish Sea, a southwest course was steered for the Caribbean and Cristobal. This port and city is also known as Colon, the Spanish name of Cristopher Columbus, and the vessel then entered the three Gatun Locks to lift her eighty five feet to Gatun Lake. After crossing the Lake, which is actually the flood water of the Chagres river, the vessel then passed through the Gaillard Cut, where millions of cubic yards of earth and rock were blasted away, to reach the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks to bring the vessel back to sea level at Balboa.

A short stay of a few hours was made at Balboa after the eight hour transit of the Panama Canal. A long reach up the Pacific coast of Mexico followed until Los Angeles harbour was entered with its fine buildings and wide streets, and then on to San Francisco under the Golden Gate Bridge, opened in 1937. The scenery of California was wonderful with its orange and lemon groves, colourful flowers of all types, and with the snow covered Sierra Nevada mountains looming behind the coastal range of hills at both of these ports. Mission San Francisco was founded in 1776 by Spanish priests, settlers and cowboys, and grew into a thriving port city that was only held back by the devastating earthquake of 18th April 1906. Over three thousand people perished and 80% of the city was destroyed in the subsequent fires that burned for a week. The Furness cargo-liners discharged a large part of their cargoes of cars, whiskey and manufactured goods at the docks on the bay.

Calls were then made at Portland (Oregon) on the mighty Columbia River and at Seattle on Puget Sound. Portland (Oregon) was founded in 1851 near the end of the Oregon trail on Chinook Indian land. The deep water harbour sits on the Willamette river with access to the mighty Columbia river and some 70 miles from the Pacific Ocean. It became the major port of the Pacific Northwest in 1890 when the docks were connected to the rest of the United States by rail. It has always been the largest shipper of wheat in the country and the second largest in the world, and also exported huge amounts of lumber and forestry products, steel, together with even bigger amounts of scrap metal to Asia. The Port of Oregon was always a major loading port of timber and grain for the Furness Pacific cargoliners.

Seattle was founded in 1852 on Salish and Tlingit Indian land by the Denny family and a handful of other settlers. The port and many of its fine buildings were constructed during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897/98, and had a busy harbour and ferries running to Victoria (BC). The crews and passengers of the Furness vessels enjoyed the view of Mount Rainier to the south, and the busy Colman Dock with its Washington State ferry departures. Occasional cargo offered at Tacoma City further to the south on Puget Sound.

The Furness Line cargo-liners then headed for Victoria (BC), the capital of Vancouver Island, and Vancouver itself. Rivers and streams near Victoria (BC) were excellent for fishing if the traveller was inclined to leave the vessel there. Victoria (BC) had been founded in 1843 by James Douglas of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and who then built Fort Camoson, named after an Indian landmark and whose name was later changed to Fort Victoria. Wood pulp was usually loaded at the Harmac Pulp Mill at Nanaimo (BC), and at nearby Chemainus. Rafts of felled logs were towed by tugs from the remote locations of Tofino, Port Hardy, Port McNeill, Gold River and Telegraph Cove on Vancouver Island into Nanaimo and Chemainus.

At Vancouver, the terminal and where the remainder of the passengers disembarked, there were nearby fjords stretching for twenty miles inland with game hunting in summer and skiing in winter. Vancouver had been founded in 1885 when the Canadian Pacific Railway chose a small settlement for its western terminus and changed its name to Vancouver, named after Capt. George Vancouver, who had earlier mapped the Pacific North west coasts. The city grew up around the Burrard Inlet, and Stanley Park was given in 1888 to all of the people of the city including the Musqueam and Squamish Indians, who had formerly occupied the land. The park was named after Lord Stanley, Governor General of Canada at that time, and a 6.5 mile perimeter walk around the park takes in English Bay and the harbour.

Outward cargo consisted of large consignments of up to a quarter of a million cases of whiskey, cars and vehicles of all types, and general cargo such as nails, steel plates, cosmetics, jam, railway lines and ties, and manufactured goods. Return cargo consisted of lumber, pulp, pitprops, sawn timber and grain, with large amounts of apples, oranges, lemons and dried fruit loaded further south at Stockton in California for carriage in the insulated compartments of 162,842 cubic feet. Bales of cotton were also loaded further south and consigned for Manchester and the clothing mills of Lancashire. There was twenty four hour dock working in all of the American and Canadian ports to give fast turnarounds and very little time ashore for the crew.

The timber deck cargoes were very vulnerable to be washed overboard by the many hurricanes encountered on the west coast of United States and Canada and in the Caribbean. Pacific Northwest under Capt. Perry nearly lost her deck lumber cargo off Cape Flattery and the Juan de Fuca Strait in 1957, while Pacific Envoy lost her timber deck cargo from number one hatch in November 1962. On the outward part on the same voyage, Pacific Envoy was ‘buzzed’ by American planes in the North Atlantic during the Cuban missile crisis, but as she was carrying cargo for the United States nothing further developed.

The four month long voyage by the six post-war sisters allowed a monthly sailing schedule from Prince’s Dock in Glasgow and Number 8 Dock in Salford, Manchester. Nine days were spent at Manchester receiving cargo and five days at Glasgow, with usually Glasgow as the port of sailing for the long voyage to the Caribbean. The service was run in conjunction with the T. & J. Harrison service to the Caribbean from 1947 to give shippers a better service, but gave more problems to the Furness Line officers as there was much more cargo planning and loading work.

Royal Mail Line Pacific Service

The Furness Group owned a large total of 64 cargo-liners in 1965 on worldwide services, and to this total were added a further 28 cargo-liners on Caribbean, Pacific North West Coast and East and West coasts of South America when Royal Mail Line and the Pacific Steam Navigation Co. Ltd. (PSNC) were taken over, with minority shareholdings in both dating from 1937/38. Four big cargo-liners with ‘Loch’ prefixes to their names joined the four remaining Furness Line post-war sextet, Pacific Fortune and Pacific Unity having been sold off to C.Y. Tung in 1964/65. Pacific Envoy was also transferred to Royal Mail Line in 1965 and renamed Loch Ryan, regaining her ‘Pacific’ name five years later. Loch Garth and Loch Avon were sisters of 8,617 grt and 10,750 dwt from the Belfast yard of Harland & Wolff Ltd. in May and September 1947, and Loch Gowan of 10,750 dwt and Loch Loyal of 11,800 dwt had followed from the same yard in June 1954 and December 1957. Loch Avon and Loch Garth ran on the Furness Line Pacific berth until 1968 and their sale for further trading or for breaking up, while Loch Gowan was broken up in 1970.

They were replaced during 1970 by two former Shaw, Savill & Albion Co. Ltd. vessels to temporarily fill the gap. This pair were Aramaic and Arabic of 9,240 dwt, renamed as Pacific Exporter and Pacific Ranger, and ran until the Pacific Northwest service of Furness Line was terminated in 1971. They had been completed in April 1957 and December 1956 by the Bremer Vulcan yard at Vegesack as open shelterdeckers on dimensions of 475 feet length, 64 feet beam and 39 feet depth to shelter deck, and had service speeds of 17.5 knots from nine cylinder turbocharged two cycle M.A.N. diesels of 8,600 bhp. They and their sister Afric had no refrigerated capacity, a swan bow, tapered masts, streamlined funnel, five holds and five hatches of 596,000 cubic feet capacity, and one 50 tonne and one 25 tonne heavy lift derrick. At the end of the Furness Line Pacific Northwest service, this pair were transferred back to PSNC and renamed Oropesa and Oroya. Pacific Reliance was sold for scrapping in March 1971 and arrived at Bruges on 26th of that month.

Pacific Northwest sailed from Glasgow on 9th February 1971 under Capt. Magnusson on probably her last voyage to all of the Pacific Northwest coast ports and loaded a full deck cargo of timber at Portland (Oregon). She called at Bermuda homeward and then at Belfast before sailing up the Manchester Ship Canal. The remaining three Furness Pacific cargo-liners of Pacific Northwest, Pacific Envoy and Pacific Stronghold plus Loch Loyal were sold shortly afterwards to Papalios and his Aegis Group of Piraeus and renamed Aegis Power, Aegis Strength, Aegis Honor and Aegis Loyal respectively. They had all been broken up in China by the end of 1974.

Postscript

The Furness Line trade to the Pacific Northwest had lasted exactly fifty years from 1921 to 1971. The Furness (Pacific) Ltd. offices were closed at Central Building, Los Angeles, the Board of Trade Building in Portland (Oregon), the Balfour Building in San Francisco, the Marine Building in Vancouver and at the Exchange Building in Seattle. The Furness Group formed the greatest British shipping combine that lasted for a century from 1891, when Christopher Furness had set up Furness, Withy & Co. Ltd. in West Hartlepool, and it comprised many of the best known British shipping lines. The Group pioneered many new developments in ship propulsion, owning the first British ship fitted with a triple expansion steam engine, the first British sea going diesel engined vessel, and the first British vessel to cross the Atlantic by turbine propulsion.

Furness, Withy (Shipping) Ltd. was later taken over on 11th March 1980 by the Hong Kong shipping empire of C. Y. Tung, the Furness Board having received assurances that the Furness Group would retain its British character and management, with vessels sailing under the British flag and manned by British officers and crews. Ten years later, the last vestige of the former great British shipping empire of Furness, Withy & Co. Ltd. was sold by C. Y. Tung to Hamburg-Süd A.G. of Hamburg, with the business interests of Royal Mail Line and Shaw, Savill & Albion Co. Ltd. listed at that time as hotels and warehousing. This, I am sure, would have brought a smile to the faces of the countless thousands of former serving seafarers of the many shipping companies of the Furness Group.