The President Monroe was the first passenger/cargo ship to visit at Yokohama since 1941.
She arrived at Noon on Dec. 28, 1947 and stayed until 10AM next day.

P.S. I'd like to swap one of deck plans of mine for P. Monroe's deck Plans.

[ 01-07-2004: Message edited by: Ocean Liners ]

These two ships, the PRESIDENT POLK AND MONROE, were my favorites during my sailing time. I was on the MONROE as Jr Asst Purser #1 and remember it well. Probably the best write up of the whole class of these ships is the book by our own Cruise News editor, Mark Goldberg. He wrote the book "Caviar & Cargo" and it really is a great one.

We carried around 75 to 85 passengers and generally took almost 4 months to travel around the world always heading west. The ships were terribly popular with the passengers and nearly always had a waitlist for space. Popular as well for the crew although they were not airconditioned except for the public rooms and dining room. Highlights for me were Saigon, Singapore and particularly Penang. That is a wonderful place.

Colombo, Sri Lanka is where we used to load up on spices, and Cochin, India where the two things that I liked best were the cashew nuts and frogs legs. The frogs were raised in large farms there and the legs were frozen and the largest I have ever seen.

In Karachi, Pakistan, which at that time was the capitol, we always arranged to have a softball game with the U.S. Embassy team. We would play ball, drink beer and soft drinks (courtesy of the Customs Officers turning their heads when we brought it ashore!) and then in the evening have a wonderful feast, featuring tandori chicken at the Beach Luxury Hotel.

Then, directly to Suez, via the Arabian Sea through the Red Sea. One trip the sea temperature in the Red Sea was 94 degrees fahrenheit! You can imagine what that did to a ship that was not airconditioned! At Suez, many of the passengers left the ship and traveled overland to see the Pyramids and rejoin the ship in Alexandria, Egypt. However, I don't think there is anything like traversing the Suez Canal, particularly before the '67 war.

Sailing Alexandria we all were looking forward to the Med ports. This was the only service APL had that called Europe and it was a real treat after a couple of months in the Orient and Sub Continent ports. We called Naples, Marseilles, Genoa and Livorno in that order and for me it was the food and people watching. You could sit for several hours with one glass of wine at an outdoor restaurant and just watch the people go by.

We sailed directly from Livorno to New York, debarked all the passengers and then spent a couple of weeks on the U.S. East Coast in various ports loading and discharging cargo. Back again to New York, embark passengers and head directly for the Panama Canal, with stops at both ends, then to Acapulco, Mexico and finally on up to San Francisco. Great great trips.

In New York, we actually docked at Pier 9, Jersey City, New Jersey. This is directly across from the lower end of Manhattan with great views. One day when we were docked there I was out on deck looking toward the Battery but my vision was somewhat limited because of the warehouse on the dock. However, I saw a huge ship's bow come into sight, coming from behind the warehouse heading up the Hudson for the New York westside piers. It was beautiful, as first the bridge came into view, then the first funnel, then the second funnel and then the third funnel. This was my first view of the QUEEN MARY. What a sight she was steaming up the river to her berth.

Well, the POLK and MONROE were wonderful ships, not too fancy, but fun to work on and to be a passenger on. They were sold as they reached their 25th year of age and APL never had anything but cargo ships (with 12 pax capacity) on the round the world run again.

Whew!!

Regards,

My favorite places are Penang Hill, Both Kek Lok Si Temple(The Pagoda of 10000 Buddhas) and Golden Buddah(huge Reclining Buddha)are very intersting and well worth see it.
How do you think about snake temple in Penang?

It seemed both ships were sailed from Alexandria to Naples, Marseille and then Genoa to Leghorn(Livorno). Why did you stopped Marseille before visiting another Italian ports?

The Polk sold to Ganaderos del Mar on July 15, 1965. and the Monroe sold to White Star Shipping & Trading Co. on December 21, 1965.
Thereafter APL maintained regular cargo service around the world by Eight Mariner cargo liners with accommodations for 12 passengers.

Those were Presidents Adams, Arthur*, Buchanan*, Coolidge, Garfield*, Hayes, Jackson, and Taylor* as photos below.
*On the Presidents Arthur, Buchanan, Garfield and Taylor, the Passenger accommodations were all on one deck.
At Later years, the rest of the ships were classified as Deluxe Mariners.

[ 01-10-2004: Message edited by: Ocean Liners ]

Yes, I remember the Snake Temple. Since I grew up in the oil fields of the western San Juaquin Valley in California I grew to like snakes as we had plenty of them. I have a photo of me somewhere in my house of the temple and me holding about 5 of the allegedly poisonous snakes. As I remember, I couldn't tell what kind they were, but were green and supposedly drugged into lethargy by the incense. Well, in those days I was pretty easily convinced of nearly anything!

I finally got back to the round the world run but not on those great freighters you picture. In 1976 APL reinstituted the round the world run via the newly opened Suez Canal and put five container ships with 12 passenger capacity in the service. These were the converted PRESIDENTS MONROE, POLK (successor names to the combo ships we talked about above) HARRISON, EISENHOWER and ROOSEVELT. We were on an 80 day voyage (in fact we advertised "80 days around the world" with all due respect to Jules Verne) and we had our own cargo handling gear as the Indian subcontinent ports were not at that time equipped to handle containers with shoreside cranes. Again though, it was a great service and always my favorite. Unfortunately, economics dictated the end of the RTW service and APL stopped service to the Med in 1977-78.

Regards,

My Gosh, you must have every APL brochure ever put out!

Yes, those Master Mariners were built originally as breakbulk cargo ships and later had the cargo holds converted to cells in order to carry containers. The cranes were left intact so they were able to load and discharge containers at ports where there were no shoreside gantry cranes and they worked very well on the containerized round the world run. These were the POLK, MONROE, and HARRISON. And they were very nicely appointed for passengers as well (12 pax).

The other two ships on the service were ships that were originally American Mail Line C-4 Mariner breakbulk ships called the Washington Mail and Philippine Mail. They were converted when still in AML service to container ships by cellularizing the cargo holds and taking all the cranes off the ships. In 1975, they were further converted by adding the gantry cranes purchased from Delta Lines (which had been on the combination cargo/pax M Class ships, the SANTA MARIA, MARIANA, MERCEDES and MAGDELENA) making them self sufficient as well. They were also renamed then to the PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT and EISENHOWER, respectively. These ships were a little less fancy than the Master Mariners, but still quite nice for the passengers. I sailed all of these but the POLK on the round the world service.

In July of 1977 onboard the PRESIDENT MONROE we were headed out for another round the world trip but when we got to Singapore we were told that APL had cancelled the RTW service and we were to standby for further sailing orders. We ultimately ended up shuttling in the Orient for another two months as we were the only self contained container ship of the fleet in the area. At that time there was a major typhoon that ripped through southern Taiwan destroying all the container cranes in the port of Kaohsiung and a week or so later, a second typhoon that did exactly the same in the northern port of Taiwan, Keelung. We made several trips between Hong Kong and Kaohsiung and Hong Kong and Keelung, shuttling containers. Amazing sights.

Now, I'd like to post the Seamaster class ships photos with your thread

quote:

---

Originally posted by nevadaflip:

The SeaMaster class ships were 5 in number and were built by Ingalls Shipbuilding Company in Pascagoula, Mississippi, delivered in 1967-68. They were modified Mariner (C-4) class, breakbulk and with 12 passenger configuration. The hull was modified (the engineers told us they were nearly like a destroyer hull, and we believed them as they rolled like one!) and the plant was a single boiler steam turbine and the auxiliary was a gas turbine. They were the first for us to have computerization in the engine room as well.

The passenger quarters and lounges were very nice, again being designed by Mary J., and reflecting the era of the President for which they were named. The had rooms that could be connected for suites, a couple of singles and all were nicely done with wood verneer and rich decoration. There was also a main lounge, small library, and bar/cardroom. They were the Presidents Van Buren, Taft, McKinley, Fillmore and Grant and as the newest and fastest ships were on the general transpacific service: San Francisco, Yokohama, Kobe, Keelung, Hong Kong, and return.
These are the ships that held the transpacific record for the time at 25.55 knots.

In 1972 the five ships underwent conversion to full container ships although keeping all the passenger areas the same. A 90 foot midbody section was added and the measurements went from the original 574 feet x 82 feet x 45 feet and 14,000 gross tons to 663 feet and 17,803 gross tons. Interestingly, the converted ship made 27 knots on sea trials, but was used at 22-24 knots in service.

While they didn't stay in port quite so long, the conversion made them a much better ship for passengers and the cruises were always sold out.

One, the PRESIDENT GRANT, went aground near the entrance to Keelung, Taiwan in heavy fog and bad weather, stranding on the rocks and in spite of concerted efforts to remove her, was lost and was a not very good advertisement for APL for several months as she was broken and abandoned on the reef just outside the harbor entrance for all ships coming and leaving that port to see.

---

[ 01-22-2004: Message edited by: Ocean Liners ]

Well, Ocean Liners, I think you have just about posted all the post (and some of the pre) war APL ships. These two Searacers (PRESIDENT LINCOLN and PRESIDENT TYLER) were the last two of the ten ships built in a ten year replacement plan. These were built in 1961 by Bethlehem Steel Co, right in San Francisco. They were similar to the preceding Mariner ships and included very nice accomodations for 12 passengers.

They were very different however, for they were APL's first venture into containerization. As you can see from the picture they had a gantry crane located forward of the midship house that covered two hatches that were cellurized.

As stated in the APL history book, "...they were about 60% larger than the regular Mariner freighters having a much greater cargo capacity and higher speed, which was planned to compensate for their increased fuel consumption.

However, these two never operated efficiently. Two systems of freight carriage that were not compatible existed side by side on one vessel. They simply got in the other's way, slowing down rather than speeding up the loading and unloading process."

The containerization standards were not set when the ships were built so instead of 17 foot containers that the cells were originally made for, the standard ultimately ended up being 20 foot containers. There were a mariad of other reasons the ships were not very successful, including these as stated by Mr. John Espey, former vice president of freight sales and ultimately vice president Asia:

"There was no integration. We didn't have the equipment. You were handling it along with the breakbulk operations. The LINCOLN would come in and handle a few containers, but nearly all was breakbulk cargo. In Japan, for example, they didn't achieve any of the economy of the cargo-handling savings. And we lost a lot of space because the container hatch really blew space in that area of the ship. There wasn't a demand for containers from the shippers, for a number of reasons. One, they just had not been convinced that it was a desirable mode dispite efforts to impress on them the fact that the damage and loss experience would be way down and so on. One of the biggest difficulties was that we were having real problems with the freight conferences. Freight conferences were made up of carriers that were all breakbulk operators. And this included the Japanese. They looked at the containers as something they didn't want. They weren't ready to go into container activity in any sizeable form. So they did everything they could conceivably do to disadvantage containers by not adopting the required tariff rules, to protect their own interests....They had no containerships and no containers. And there we were with the LINCOLN and TYLER, starting off. Rules were placed or retained in tariffs that made the cost of shipping in a container higher than breakbulk. When it should have been the other way around. As a result, we had a helluva time selling containers because of the rate structure. Obviously, we could have pulled out of the conference, and we considered this on a number of occasions. But every time we decided against it. Then, of course, we were not geared up to it. We didn't have the conviction to commit the investment required to change over to a full container operation. So we were betwixt and between"

Well, anyway, too much of all that. They were expensive, went through a couple of conversions and ultimately laid up in 1979.

Obviously, the Japanese carriers as well as APL all finally got it right and are now huge major players in the containerization industry worldwide.

Regards,

quote:

---

Originally posted by nevadaflip:

They were very different however, for they were APL's first venture into containerization. As you can see from the picture they had a gantry crane located forward of the midship house that covered two hatches that were cellurized.

As stated in the APL history book, "...they were about 60% larger than the regular Mariner freighters having a much greater cargo capacity and higher speed, which was planned to compensate for their increased fuel consumption.

However, these two never operated efficiently. Two systems of freight carriage that were not compatible existed side by side on one vessel. They simply got in the other's way, slowing down rather than speeding up the loading and unloading process."

The other two ships on the service were ships that were originally American Mail Line C-4 Mariner breakbulk ships called the Washington Mail and Philippine Mail. They were converted when still in AML service to container ships by cellularizing the cargo holds and taking all the cranes off the ships. In 1975, they were further converted by adding the gantry cranes purchased from Delta Lines (which had been on the combination cargo/pax M Class ships, the SANTA MARIA, MARIANA, MERCEDES and MAGDELENA) making them self sufficient as well. They were also renamed then to the PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT and EISENHOWER, respectively.

---

Hi Jerry,

I am just wondering If APL felt as stated below
" these two never operated efficiently"
Why did they added Gantry Cranes purchased from Delta Lines in 1975?
What's about the Presidents Kennedy(ex Oregon mail) and Truman(ex Japan mail)
What happened to AML's C-4 Class ship called the Canadian Mail(built 1965)?

[ 01-25-2004: Message edited by: Ocean Liners ]

Could you tell me which port has discharged first container from APL's ship?

[ 01-23-2004: Message edited by: Ocean Liners ]

I remember reading about the negotiations with Harry Bridges (the labor god of West Coiast longshoremen, for the benefit of those not familiar with the scenario) in which the union got a cut of the cost of container operations to balance the loss of longshoremen jobs in handling contaiers vs breakbulk.

In discussing the Searacers (LINCOLN & TYLER) and the converted C-4 containerships (WASHINGTON & EISENHOWER) we have to remember that they operated in different decades. The Searacers were in the 60's when there was little or no port infrastructure, shore side cranes, etc., for containers. So they were primarily breakbulk ships with cargo gear for breakbulk with a small capacity for containers with the ability to off and on load by themselves. So that was the problem - two different technologies and not being able to take advantage of either exclusively.

In the case of the C-4's, they were ships built in the mid l960s, operated as conventional breakbulk freighters until 1971/72 when they were converted to be full containerships with no cargo gear. They then operated for a couple of years and when the Suez Canal was to be reopened in 1975 and the company planned to reinstite the Round the World service, they were going to do it with pure container ships. However, there were several ports (mainly Indian and Pakistani) that had no shore cranes so the ships had to have some way to handle the loading and discharging of containers on board. So it was for this service only that the gantry cranes were put on those two ships. The other ships on the run were the Master Mariners, fully cellurized for containers only, but still with conventional cargo cranes to handle the off/on loading. So in 1975 the ROOSEVELT & EISENHOWER got those cranes.

The JAPAN MAIL (renamed PRESIDENT TRUMAN) and the two previous were sisterships and built by Todd Shipyards. JAPAN MAIL was also converted in 1971 to a full containership but with no cranes added and completed it's service with the company as such.

The OREGON MAIL (later the PRESIDENT KENNEDY) and the CANADA MAIL were sisterships of basically the same class as the others but were built in San Diego, CA, by National Steel and Shipbuilding Corp, in 1964/65. The OREGON MAIL was converted in 1972 also to a full containership, also with no cranes and finished it's time with APL as well. However, because Amercian Mail Line only required four ships for it's direct container schedule, the CANADA MAIL was never converted and when APL took over full operation of AML and consolidated the fleet the ship excess and only breakbulk so it was turned over to the government and became the oceanographic survey ship "SS H. H. HESS".

And, as Yokohama was the first Asian port of the normal scheduled container routes, I expect your fair city was the first overseas container movement for APL, but I'm not sure of that as Kobe has always been very progressive in the container port development.

Regards,

Yes, you are correct in your "late to the party" idea.

Malcolm Maclean is generally considered the "father" of containerization and his SeaLand company the first true container operation. There were stabs and stumbles by several prior to him but he brought it together. On the West Coast, Matson indeed, was into it first, and APL got into the swing of things a year or more later. In fact, later on in the early 60's Matson tried to institute a container service to the Orient, but ran into the same problems, primarily in Japan, that I mentioned earlier, and after a short try gave it up to continue concentrating on their Hawaii service.

With regards to the negotiations with the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU), that was truly a major step in labor/management relations. I offer a rather lengthy summary of the agreement that comes from a book called "Facing Mechanization: The West Coast Longshore Plan" by Lincoln Fairley, and published in 1979 by the Institute of Industrial Relations, Univ of California at Los Angeles:

" In 1960 the ILWU and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) negotiated what they called the ILWU-PMA Mechanization and Modernization (M&M) Agreement. The Union's objective was to protect its member Pacific Coast longshoremen against job loss threatened by labor-saving technology. The ship operators' objective was to secure elimination of the Union's restrictive rules, and, ultimately to regain control over their operations and thereby to increase efficiency. The Union won an M&M Fund which was used to provide a variety of benefits designed to prevent layoffs and to maintain earnings of the regular work force; the Employers won significant modifications in the work rules as well as the almost unlimited right to introduce new methods of work.

The pact was widely hailed as an important peaceful solution to the problems associated with mechanization. It was said to be "epoch-making" and won plaudits from labor relations experts, politicians and the news media. On the other hand, portions of organized industry were appalled that PMA had agreed to surrender some of its management prerogatives and organized labor tended to be critical of ILWU for voluntarily giving up (some called it "selling") a major portion of its work rules.

The Plan was controversial from the outset, not only among outside observers, but among the longshoremen themselves. Many of the men resented having to surrender work practices and working conditions which they had fought to win and to hang onto, and some shared the opinion voiced on the left that the Plan was an extreme form of class collaboration. Referendum votes supporting the Plan were won only by narrow margins, despite the strong advocacy by President Bridges and the other top officers.

The initial Plan expired in 1966 but was then renewed, with significant changes, for another five years. When the parties met in 1970-71 to negotiate a new longshore contract, to which M&M was a supplement, the M&M agreement was discarded, but the underlying trade-off between job security and efficient operation was retained. The long-run effect of the Plan was to restore to the ship operators a major portion of the control which they had lost after the 1934 strike and which they had been struggling to regain ever since. "

Regards,

Many thanks for your explanations.

In the port of Yokohama, The First full-container ship named "San Juan" entered in 1968. and the port of Kobe, Entry of first container ship,"Hawaiian Planter" in 1967.

APL didn't advertised on Searacer's Class ships in their brochure issued on Aug. '67,

Delta Line's Four Santa Class ships had 2 gantry cranes each. they fitted forward and aft section of the ships.

Please let me know when First APL's containers discharged at Yokohama and Kobe?

How many gantry cranes did APL fitted onto the ROOSEVELT & EISENHOWER?

[ 01-25-2004: Message edited by: Ocean Liners ]

Wow, thats pretty expensive for a book. It is really good however, and covers (as the author is wont to do, extensively) all of the C-3P class ships.

Mark Goldberg is the editor of the Cruise News right here on Cruise Talk and maybe if we asked nicely he might find a new one for you that he has stashed in his back room?!

And Mark, when is your next one going to come out? I just can't understand how you want to spend your time cruising on ships instead of hard at work writing another book!!

Seriously, I have your Kings Point series V-1 through 5 and really look forward to the next one out.

I don't know when the first containers from APL were worked in Japan so can't answer that one.

The ROOSEVELT and EISENHOWER ended up with one large gantry crane that rested just forward of the midship house. This crane was fabricated from the M ship cranes, using two of the M ship's cranes to create one large one for the APL ships. It was a slave/master arrangement of some sort. I'm not much on engineering so please don't ask me to explain how it worked

When put into resting position just in front of the midship house, it actually restricted forward vision from the bridge as you could not see the bow, only the top of the flag standard on the bow. I remember on the first voyage round the world with our new crane on the ROOSEVELT, that upon arrival Karachi, the pilot was about 5 feet 6 inches tall and he could see nothing. He refused to bring the ship into port even over the entreaties of our Captain (who was 5 feet 7 inches tall). Finally after an hour or so of talk (and other persuasion) he did agree to move into port. Our Captain and mates did most of the piloting, but he saved face and brought the ship in.

Then when we arrived in Port Suez to begin the Suez Canal transit, the officials assigned us to the absolute rear of the convoy because of our restricted vision. That proved to be a smart move! We were given two pilots, one the Chief Pilot for the canal. He was in charge and only about 5 or 6 miles up the canal from Suez he got into trouble with his commands to the helm and we promptly ended up plowing right into the western side of the canal, putting our bow way up on (and into) the bank and stuck high and dry! We could not back down and had to wait for several hours for a huge Russian tug based in Port Suez to come and pull us off the bank. It was most interesting to go up on the bow and watch the people and their camels watching us

We finally got pulled off and caught up with the convoy in Great Bitter Lake. A most interesting first trip around the world!

When we returned to the U.S. a small wheelhouse was installed on the deck above the regular bridge and the vision problem was alleviated. This was done on the EISENHOWER as well.

The crane worked very well though, just like it was designed!

Regards,

Thank you for your reply about The cranes

I believe the Sea Racers engaged Intercoastal service between N.Y. and S.F. at the time of the borchure printed on Aug. '67 and a few months or a year Later, They shifted to Trans-Pacific/Weekly Sailings to join the Seamasters.

Well, I want to share more photos.

From Delta Lines brochure

The President Van Buren of Seamasters

C-6 Containerliners

[ 01-27-2004: Message edited by: Ocean Liners ]