The North Coast Steam Navigation Company was a shipping company that operated in Australia, [1] formed as the Grafton Steam Navigation Company in 1855. [2] The company was later renamed the Clarence & Richmond River Steam Navigation Company before being renamed in December 1888 as the Clarence, Richmond & Macleay River Steam Navigation Company.
On 13 August 1891 the company merged with John See and Company and was renamed as the North Coast Steam Navigation Company and was based in Sydney. The steamships Noorebar, Cavauba, Dorrigo, and Wollumbin were bought from George Wallace Nicoll in 1905, [3] 13 months before he died. [4] In 1920 the company merged with Allan Taylor & Company and continued to operate the fleets under their own names. The company acquired Langley Bros in 1925 and bought the remaining fleet of the Coastal Co-Operative Steamship Company in 1929. The company further acquired the Port Stephens Steamship Company in 1940.
Many of the company's vessels were requisitioned by the Royal Australian Navy during World War II, and two ships were lost due to enemy action. On 5 December 1940 Nimbin was sunk about 8 nautical miles (15 km) off Norah Head, New South Wales by a mine laid by the German auxiliary cruiser Pinguin, killing 7 people including her Captain. On 29 April 1943 Wollongbar was torpedoed and sunk off Crescent Head, New South Wales, killing 32 of her 35 crew. Nambucca was destroyed by fire in 1945 while serving with the US Army small fleet in the Pacific islands. [1]
The company traded until 1954, when it went into voluntary liquidation due to rising costs and unfavourable industrial conditions. [5]
The Illawarra Steam Navigation Company was a shipping company that serviced the south coast of New South Wales, Australia from 1858 to the early 1950s. It was formed through the amalgamation of the General Steam Navigation Company, the Kiama Steam Navigation Company and the Shoalhaven Steam Navigation Company, each of whom serviced parts of the south coast with their respective vessels. After merging, the new company held a near monopoly in regard to shipping on the south coast, and their fleet visited every significant port between Sydney and the border of Victoria. The company transported both passengers and a range of produce, including livestock, and hence it became known as the 'Pig and Whistle Line': it was said that ships would wait an hour for a pig but not a minute for a passenger.
SS Justicia was a British troop ship that was launched in Ireland in 1914 and sunk off County Donegal in 1918. She was designed and launched as the transatlantic liner Statendam, a new flagship for the Holland America Line (NASM), but the outbreak of First World War delayed her completion. In 1915 NASM agreed to let the United Kingdom acquire her and have her completed as a troop ship.
Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand Limited was once the biggest shipping line in the southern hemisphere and New Zealand's largest private-sector employer. It was incorporated by James Mills in Dunedin in 1875 with the backing of a Scottish shipbuilder, Peter Denny. Bought by shipping giant P&O around the time of World War I it was sold in 1972 to an Australasian consortium and closed at the end of the twentieth century.
SS California may refer to the following ships:
HMAS Mallina was a 3,213 GRT cargo ship built by Harland & Wolff, Belfast in 1909 as Mallina for the Australian United Steam Navigation Company for the Rockhampton to Sydney cargo route. She was requisitioned by the Royal Australian Navy in 1914, as a store carrier and collier. She was returned to her owners in 1915. She was sold in 1935 to Machida Shokai Kisen Kaisha, Japan and renamed Seiko Maru, before being sold to Kita Nippon Kisen Kaisha and renamed Siberia Maru No. 3, which was later shortened to Siberian Maru. While steaming in the Sulu Sea, Philippines on 24 September 1944, she was attacked by American aircraft of Task Force 38 and sunk with the loss of 158 of the 2,382 people on board.
Wollongbar was a 2,239-ton passenger steamship built by the Lithgows, Port Glasgow in 1922 for the North Coast Steam Navigation Company, as a replacement for Wollongbar which was wrecked in 1921.
SS Calgaric was a steam ocean liner that was completed in 1917, assumes service in 1918 and scrapped in 1934. She was built for the Pacific SN Co Line as Orca. In 1923 she was transferred to the Royal Mail Line. In 1927 she was transferred to White Star Line and renamed Calgaric.
HMAS Orara was a coastal passenger and cargo steamship that was built in Scotland in 1907 and sunk by a mine in China in 1950. She spent most of her career in the fleet of the North Coast Steam Navigation Company (NCSNC) of New South Wales. In the Second World War she was an auxiliary minesweeper and depot ship in the Royal Australian Navy.
SS Ashkhabad was a merchant ship of the Soviet Union sunk in 1942. She had been built as a British merchant ship in 1917 in Glasgow, Scotland as War Hostage. Over the next three decades she passed through a number of owners and had several different names; Milazzo (1919–1924), Aldersgate (1924–1925), Mistley Hall (1925–1934), Kutais (1934–1935), Dneprostroi (1935–1938) and finally Ashkhabad from 1938 to 1942. Originally designed as a freighter, she was at several points converted to a tanker to carry fuel oil. At the time of her loss the four hundred foot tanker was owned by the Soviet Union's Sovtorgflot organisation. She was torpedoed on 29 April 1942, and then sunk as a hazard to navigation on 3 May 1942. The wreck is now a popular dive site.
SS Pennland was a transatlantic ocean liner that was launched as Pittsburgh in Ireland in 1920 and renamed Pennland in 1926. She had a succession of UK, German and Dutch owners and operators. In 1940 she was converted into a troopship.
SS Westernland was a transatlantic ocean liner that was launched as Regina in Scotland in 1917, renamed Westernland in 1929 and was scrapped in 1947. She began her career as a troop ship repatriating US troops after the Armistice of 11 November 1918. In the Second World War, Westernland served as a troop ship, repair ship and destroyer depot ship.
The Northern Steam Ship Company Ltd (NSS) served the northern half of the North Island of New Zealand from 1881 to 1974. Its headquarters, the Northern Steam Ship Company Building, remains in use on Quay Street, Auckland as a bar and is listed by Heritage New Zealand as a Category I Historic Place.
Several vessels have been named Flinders after British explorer Matthew Flinders (1774–1814), including:
SS Rio Tercero was a cargo steamship that was launched in England in 1912 as Eboe. She was renamed Fortunstella in 1938, and Rio Tercero in 1941. A U-boat sank her in the Battle of the Atlantic in 1942.
Sydney Harbour ferry services date back to the first years of Sydney's European settlement. Slow and sporadic boats ran along the Parramatta River from Sydney to Parramatta and served the agricultural settlements in between. By the mid-1830s, speculative ventures established regular services. From the late-nineteenth century the North Shore developed rapidly. A rail connection to Milsons Point took alighting ferry passengers up the North Shore line to Hornsby, New South Wales via North Sydney. Without a bridge connection, increasingly large fleets of steamers serviced the cross harbour routes and in the early twentieth century, Sydney Ferries Limited was the largest ferry operator in the world.
SS Canonbar was a steam cargo ship built in Ardrossan, Scotland in 1910 for the North Coast Steam Navigation Company, and used in the Australian coastal trade. During World War II, she was part of the US supply fleet in the Pacific Ocean. From 1949, she was Rosita, until 1960, when she was renamed Valiente. Under the name Kettara IV, she was sunk by shell fire off the Vietnamese coast in 1966, with the loss of her entire crew.
RMS Hecla was an ocean liner for the Cunard Line, built in 1860 and scrapped in 1954. As of 2024, she is the longest surviving vessel built for the company, lasting 94 years.