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The History of the Blue Star Line
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The Company has its origins
in Liverpool, with the Vestey family developing a butchery business.
They were one of the first businesses to introduce refrigeration into
their shops. Previously butchers had to sell off meat at reduced prices
on Saturday, the shops being closed on a Sunday. From this developed a
business importing meat from South America. Eventually growing to a huge
business owning estancias to feed their meat works in Buenos Aires, the
"Anglo Frigorifico". This meat works in
its heyday could process 5000 head of cattle a day. The saying was that
nothing was wasted. The carcasses being exported as chilled beef,
together with the offal and hides. Even producing as a by-product
insulin for diabetics! |
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The Blue Star Line was
originally founded by the Vestey family to carry eggs and other
perishables from China. |
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The
company was formally registered on 28th July 1911
and the first ships were registered with
Lloyds Register of Shipping between 1912-1913. Prior to World War I,
seven refrigerated ships sailed under the Blue Star Line banner,
carrying eggs and other perishables to England from China. By the First
World War it had 12 vessels, all their names starting with Brod after Evelene
Brodstone. A considerable profit was made over these years with the
carriage of beef to supply the allied armies in France. It was for these
services that William Vestey was honoured with a baronetcy. It was not
until 1920 that the familiar "Stars" began to
appear the first being the Albion
Star |
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The company
continued to trade profitably and became famous for its all first class
passenger vessels the
Almeda Star,
Andalucia Star,
Arandora Star,
Avelona Star
and
Avila Star.
The
Arandora Star
in particular became popular to the rich and famous for cruising in the
Mediterranean, the Baltic and the West Indies. By 1939 the company
traded some 38 vessels. |
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On the outbreak of WWII,
most of the vessels were commandeered by the British Government,
continuing to carry much needed food to the United Kingdom. Many of the
ships being fast for the period and sailed unaccompanied with the result
that by the end of
WWII some 29 ships and 646 Blue Star personnel lost their lives.
Including 11 captains, 47 navigating and 88 engineering officers. Most
famously was the sinking of the Doric
Star by infamous German pocket battleship the
Graf Spee and the tragic loss of the
Arandora Star
to a German Submarine off the west coast of Ireland. |
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Of the pre-war vessels,
only the
Albion Star
,
Australia Star ,
Brisbane Star ,
Columbia
Star ,
Fresno Star
,
Gaelic Star ,
New
Zealand Star ,
Norman Star
,
Sydney Star ,Trojan
Star ,
Tudor Star
(ex. Empire Star) and Britanica
survived. |
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Chart of Blue Star
Line Casualties |
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The Story of a
Great Shipping Line |
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After WWII the company
rebuilt the fleet by new building and the purchase of some second hand
tonnage. Notable among the new building was the replacement Plate or so
called "A"-boats. These cargo passenger ships, the
Argentina
Star ,
Brasil Star,
Paraguay
Star , and
Uruguay Star
carried some 68 passengers and hanging chilled beef. On a 7-week turn
round they sailed from London's Royal Victoria Dock calling at
Southampton, Lisbon, Las Palmas, occasionally Recife, Rio de Janeiro,
Santos, Montevideo and finally terminating at Buenos Aires. Many of the
passengers were employees of Vestey companies in South America
travelling to and from leave in Europe, but the ships were also popular
with many round trip passengers escaping the European winter. It must be
remembered that this was before the Jumbo Jet, so flying to South
America was only for the super rich, by flying boat. The cargo of
chilled beef was loaded directly from the company's meat works in Dock
Sud in Buenos Aires, taking 7 days. Some general cargo and small
quantities of refrigerated cargoes such as fish were carried on the
outbound passage. |
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The company continued
trading successfully during the post war years, with operations as far a
field as Australia, New Zealand, West and East Coasts of the U.S., South
America and Central America, the latter on the banana trades. |
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The company finally was
disposed of in 1998 to
P&O Nedlloyd , complete with it's name and ship's livery including
the famous funnel. While most of the container vessels including those
formally operating as ACT vessels were also sold to P&O Nedlloyd, most
of the refrigerated liner ships were retained in the Vestey organisation
under the ownership of Albion Reefers. These were operated by Star
Reefers formed by the merging of the conventional reefer fleets of
Hamburg Sud and Albion Reefers. |
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In
July 2001 the Vestey Group announced that Star Reefers, operating a
fleet of 24 ships had been sold to Norwegian Owners. The business would
continue to be managed from London with the staff transferring over. The
Norwegian Owners have since forged a joint operation with the Japanese
NYK Group, and a new company, NYK Star Reefers Ltd., under the
Chairmanship of David Habgood, which then controlled a fleet of 74
vessels. This finally ended some 90 years association of the Vestey
family with the shipping industry.
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Some of the original Blue Star vessels sold
to P&O Nedlloyd traded until February 2003 under Blue Star colours on
the West Coast of America to Australia and New Zealand. They were the
America Star (ex. ACT 3),
Melbourne Star ( ex. ACT 4),
Sydney Star (ex. ACT 5) and
Queensland Star (ex. ACT 6)
. The last vessel trading, to carry the Blue Star funnel was the
America Star
which was handed over to the breakers on the 19th February 2003. An end
of an era indeed. |
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On the 22nd April 2002, P&O
Nedlloyd placed its first contract with its own, newly formed ship
management company,
Reederei Blue
Star, based in Hamburg. The time
charter agreement covers five 2,500-TEU ships, each for a period of five
years, with the first deliveries commencing in late 2003. The vessels,
which will be built by Hyundai Heavy Industries in Korea and owned by
German KG private investors. They will be used to replace older tonnage
to cover positions in the P&O Nedlloyd network. P&O Nedlloyd says it
created Reederei Blue Star to diversify its sources for chartered ships.
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P&O Nedlloyd Ltd. was acquired
by the
AP Muller/ Maersk Group
(Maersk) in 2005 and was combined with their existing container shipping business
Maersk-Sealand to form Maersk Line. |
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The Blue Star colours are still in use on vessels of
Reederei Blue
Star who provide ship management services and was owned by the
AP Muller / Maersk
Group. Though I believe not as funnel colours but as a painted
pennant on the accommodation. |
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n June 2009 the Hamburg based
shipping group Komrowski Shipping took over
Reederei Blue Star from the
AP Muller / Maersk Group.
The vessels will remain on charter to Maersk. |
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Today,
the Vestey family retains considerable farming operations in Venezuela
and Brazil, which are involved in the breeding and ranching of cattle
and production of sugar cane. While
Vestey Foods Group
(formerly Angliss International Ltd) specialises in supplying
temperature controlled foods and premium fine foods around the globe,
with a turnover of US$800 million in 2004. |
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A FAREWELL TO BLUE STAR REEFER
TRADING |
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Updated: 27/08/2011 |
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