Unit History: Northern Petroleum and Bulk Freighters Co
Built by Austin Pickersgill of Sunderland in 1964 as the wearfield for Northern Petroleum Tank SS Co Ltd and managed by Hunting & Sons Ltd ( other hunting & sons ships were avonfield, derwentfield, gretafield, teesfield, thamesfield, inverfield and dalhanna to name a few ) she changed hands to the northern petroleum & bulk freighters ltd ( same managers ) she was acquired by ben line in 1973 and re-named benhiant. In 1974 she was re-named cramond.she reverted back to benhiant in 1977. In 1978 she was sold to the dover cia nav s.a panama and re-named alexandra.she was re-named fair wind in 1980 and on 15th march 1985, she arrived at a shanghai breakers yard and was scrapped. When she was under the british flag her radio callsign was ’ gnje ’. I sailed on this vessel on two separate occasions. My first trip on her started in october of 1974.
I joined her in durban, south africa she had come from rosario/recife in brazil with a cargo of wheat destined for communist china, from durban we went strait up through the yellow sea and into the po hai sea ( briefly stopping at singapore for stores and mail ) to a small port at the bottom of the river from tientsin, i’m sure the port was called something like tsing kang, but could never find it on a map.
We anchored of for quite a while before we could berth ( there were literally dozens upon dozens of ships laying of the coast waiting to be berthed ) from china we went to hong kong and the vessel was re-named ’cramond’.
I joined her in durban, south africa she had come from rosario/recife in brazil with a cargo of wheat destined for communist china, from durban we went strait up through the yellow sea and into the po hai sea ( briefly stopping at singapore for stores and mail ) to a small port at the bottom of the river from tientsin, i’m sure the port was called something like tsing kang, but could never find it on a map.
We anchored of for quite a while before we could berth ( there were literally dozens upon dozens of ships laying of the coast waiting to be berthed ) from china we went to hong kong and the vessel was re-named ’cramond’.