SS Tuxpam

Last updated February 20, 2019

SS Tuxpam can refer to

SS Flying Lark, a banana boat built in 1915 and named Tuxpam 1934–38
SS Tuxpam (1944), a dredger built as SS Empire Clydesdale in 1944 and named Tuxpam 1946–70
SS Tuxpam (Mexican oil tanker), a Mexican oil tanker, ex-SS Prometheus, sunk on 27 June 1942 by U-129.

SS Flying Lark was a ship built in Fredrikstad, Norway in 1915 as the banana boat SS Honduras. Over a 43 year career that spanned oceans and seas the world over she had 10 owners, eight names and a succession of different managers.

Banana boat was a term, a descriptive nickname, given to fast ships also called banana carriers engaged in the banana trade designed to transport easily spoiled bananas rapidly from tropical growing areas to northern markets that often carried passengers as well as fruit. During the first half of the twentieth century, the refrigerated ships, such as SS Antigua and SS Contessa, engaged in the Central America to United States trade also operated as luxurious passenger vessels. Surplus naval vessels were converted in some cases in the search for speed with Standard Fruit converting four U.S. Navy destroyer hulls, without machinery, to the banana carriers Masaya, Matagalpa, Tabasco and Teapa in 1932. Transfers to naval service served as transports and particularly chilled stores ships such as USS Mizar, the United Fruit passenger and banana carrier Quirigua, and the lead ship of a group that were known as the Mizar class of stores ships. Modern banana boats tend to be reefer ships or other refrigerated ships that carry cooled bananas on one leg of a voyage, then general cargo on the return leg.

Tuxpam was a 1,747 GRT suction hopper dredger which was built in 1944 by Lobnitz & Co Ltd, Renfrew. She was laid down as Mazatlan for the Mexican Government but was requisitioned by the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT) whilst under construction and launched as Empire Clydesdale. In 1946 she was transferred to the Mexican Government and renamed Tuxpam. She was scrapped in 1970.

This article includes a list of ships with the same or similar names. If an internal link for a specific ship led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended ship article, if one exists.

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Tuxpam may refer to

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