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Tasmanian Steam Navigation Company Limited was an Australian steaming company, formed in Hobart in 1853 and defunct in 1922 after a series of acquisitions. It operated a shipping service from Tasmania to the Australian Mainland, later expanded to New Zealand.
The company was formed in Hobart, Tasmania in 1853 to operate a shipping service from Tasmania to the Australian Mainland, and expanded its routes into New Zealand in 1864. It took over the Launceston & Melbourne Steam Navigation Co. in 1865 after the sinking of the S. S. City of Launceston.
From 1889 there was a three-way battle between the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand, Huddart Parker and the Tasmanian Steam Navigation Company (TSNCo) on the Tasmanian routes (Melbourne-Launceston, Hobart-Melbourne and Hobart-Sydney). The TSNCo did not have other routes to absorb their Tasmanian losses, and was bought out by the Union Company in 1891 but continued to trade under T.S.N.Co flag. E.M. Fisher regarded a Union Company takeover as the lesser of two evils. [1] [2]
In 1921 Huddart Parker and the Union Line formed a joint partnership company called Tasmanian Steamers [3] to operate ferry services across the Bass Strait. on 1 January 1922 all remaining vessels belonging to T.S.N.Co were transferred to Tasmanian Steamers.
The history of Tasmania begins at the end of the Last Glacial Period when it is believed that the island was joined to the Australian mainland. Little is known of the human history of the island until the British colonisation of Tasmania in the 19th century.
The Bass Strait Triangle is the waters that separate the states of Victoria and Tasmania, including Bass Strait, in south-eastern Australia. The term Bass Strait Triangle appears to have been first used following the disappearance of Frederick Valentich in 1978 although the region had a bad reputation long before that.
Australian National Airways (ANA) was Australia's predominant aerial carrier from the mid-1930s to the early 1950s.
Huddart Parker Ltd was an Australian shipping company trading in various forms between 1876 and 1961. It was one of the seven major coastal shippers in Australia at a time when shipping was the principal means of interstate and trans-Tasman transport. The company started in Geelong, but in 1890 shifted its offices to Melbourne. By 1910 Huddart Parker had grown to rank 24th of the top 100 companies in Australia by asset value. Several of the company's ships served in World War I and World War II. Huddart Parker ceased to be an independent company in 1961, when it was taken over by Bitumen and Oil Refineries Australia Limited.
SS Zealandia, nicknamed "Z", was an Australian cargo and passenger steamship. She served as a troopship in both World War I and World War II. Zealandia transported the Australian 8th Division. Her crew were the last Allied personnel to see HMAS Sydney, which was lost with all hands in 1941. Zealandia was sunk in the air raids on Darwin of 19 February 1942.
TT-Line Company Pty Ltd, better known by its trading name Spirit of Tasmania is a company which has been operating ferries from mainland Australia to Tasmania since July 1985. The company was separated from the Tasmanian Government's Department of Transport in 1993, becoming a government business enterprise wholly owned by the Government of Tasmania where it was then named Spirit of Tasmania in August 1993.
SS Loongana was a Bass Strait passenger ship initially owned by Union Steamship Company of New Zealand. In 1922 she was transferred to Tasmanian Steamers Pty Ltd. SS Loongana was in service between 1904-1934 and was the first ship registered in the Southern Hemisphere with steam turbine propulsion. During the 1912 North Mount Lyell Disaster she crossed the strait in 12 hours and 46 minutes at 22 knots, carrying rescue gear from Victorian mines.
Australian National Line (ANL) was a coastal shipping line established by the Government of Australia in 1956. It was sold in 1998 by the Howard government to CMA CGM.
The Bruny Island Ferry links Bruny Island to the Tasmanian mainland. Once operated by North Western Shipping and Towage Co. Pty Ltd and owned by the Tasmanian Government, the ferry Mirambeena travels between Kettering on the Tasmanian mainland and Roberts Point on Bruny Island, the service is now run by Sealink. The service is subsidised by the Tasmanian Government.
Tasmanian Steamers Proprietary Limited was a company that operated passenger ferries across the Bass Strait from 1921 to 1959. It was jointly owned by the Union Steam Ship Company and Huddart Parker.
SS Taroona was built in Linthouse, Glasgow by Alexander Stephen & Sons for Tasmanian Steamers, Australia. She was a steam turbine ship capable of 18 knots, but typically operated at 16 knots for better fuel economy.
SS City of Launceston was a 368 GRT steamship operated by the Launceston and Melbourne Steam Navigation Company from 1863, which had an early role in colonial steam shipping as the forerunner of the modern Bass Strait ferry service between Tasmania and Victoria. It was sunk in Port Phillip Bay after a collision with another ship on 19 November 1865.
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.
Steam Navigation Companies became widespread during the 19th century after the development of steam-powered vessels, both steamboats, which were generally used on lakes and rivers, and ocean-faring steamships. Companies that share the name Steam Navigation Company include the following, listed by their country of ownership.
HMS Nairana was a passenger ferry that was requisitioned by the Royal Navy (RN) as a seaplane carrier in 1917. She was laid down in Scotland in 1914 as TSS Nairana for the Australian shipping line Huddart Parker, but construction was suspended after the outbreak of the First World War. Following resumption of work, the ship was launched in 1915, and converted to operate wheeled aircraft from her forward flying-off deck, as well as floatplanes that were lowered into the water. She saw service during the war with the Grand Fleet, and in 1918–19 supported the British intervention in the Russian Civil War.
Bass Strait Ferries have been the ships that have been used for regular transport across Bass Strait between Tasmania and Victoria in mainland Australia, as well as the various attempts to link Tasmania with Sydney. Historically, some regular shipping services in the twentieth century linked Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart with the Bass Strait ports: Launceston's various port locations, Devonport and Burnie. The distinction between coastal shipping and Bass Strait ferry has been blurred at times.
HMAS Coogee was a passenger ferry that briefly served as a Royal Australian Navy armed patrol vessel and minesweeper in the latter part of the First World War. She was launched in 1887 and scuttled in 1928.
The Horseshoe run of the Union Steam Ship Company carried passengers and cargo between Australian and New Zealand ports in the late 19th century. Several ships were used from 1882 for about 15 years: the S.S. Hauroto, the S.S. Manapouri, the S.S. Tarawera, and the S.S. Wairarapa:
PS Governor Wynyard, was a small steam ship, the first to be built in New Zealand, and was launched in 1851. She was a paddle steamer schooner, built of pohutukawa, with kauri planks. In 1853 she left her Tamaki River service in Auckland and was sold in Melbourne in 1852 during the gold rush, but was soon serving as a ferry in Tasmania, until she had her primitive engines removed in 1858. She sprang a leak and became a beached wreck in 1873.