Cia. Nacional liners ANGOLA and MOÇAMBIQUE

The beautiful Portuguese sister ships ANGOLA and MOÇAMBIQUE built in Newcastle in 1948 and 1949 for the Lisbon to the East Africa mail service.

Owned by Companhia Nacional de Navegação, those two handsome motor liners shared the mail service to Mozambique with the rival company Cia Colonial and their two liners PÁTRIA and IMPÉRIO, built by John Brown in Clydebank in 1947 and 1948.

The ANGOLA and MOÇAMBIQUE did also some cruises from Lisbon and a few trooping voyages in the sixties. The MOÇAMBIQUE was one of four Portuguese passenger liners that went to Carachi, Pakistan, in 1962 to transport home the Portuguese military traped by India following their occupation of Portuguese India in December 1961. They were withdrawn and scraped in Taiwan in 1974 and 1972.
Belíssimos paquetes, os gémeos ANGOLA e MOÇAMBIQUE, os últimos com estas designações que integraram a frota da Nacional. Foram construídos em Newcastle, em estaleiros diferentes, ao abrigo do programa de renovação da marinha mercante delineado pelo Despacho 100 do ministro Américo Tomás em 1945. Nas mãos de gregos, teriam navegado mais 20 anos a fazer cruzeiros com algumas modificações, mas a Companhia Nacional não se entusiasmou com os resultados dos cruzeiros que estes navios fizeram a partir de Lisboa, um pouco ao longo das suas carreiras, e acabaram os dois demolidos na Formosa, o MOÇAMBIQUE em 1972, o ANGOLA em 1974.
Tive o privilégio de ter conhecido muito bem estes paquetes e uma imensidão de outros navios portugueses.

Text copyright L.M.Correia and images copyright Ian Shifman (Moçambique) and Trevor Jones (Angola). For other posts and images, check our archive at the right column of the main page. Thanks for your visit and comments. Luís Miguel Correia

Porto do Funchal a 31-12-1935

Fotografia panorâmica do porto do Funchal na tarde de 31 de Dezembro de 1935, com uma belíssima luz e uma fantástica «colecção» de navios de passageiros. Da esquerda para a direita, vê-se o Aviso de segunda classe NRP PEDRO NUNES, os paquetes AGUILA (Yeoward Line), LIMA (Insulana), COLUMBUS (Norddeutscher Lloyd), VOLTAIRE (Lamport & Holt), MILWAUKEE (Hapag), ANGOLA (CNN) e CAP ARCONA (Hamburg Sud). Esteve também fundeado no Funchal nesse último dia de 1935 o paquete MONTE ROSA (Hamburg Sud) que não se vê na imagem. 

Uma frota de navios de passageiros verdadeiramente magnífica, infelizmente destinado à destruição absurda decorrente da Segunda Guerra Mundial. Deste grupo, só sobreviveram ao trágico conflito os navios portugueses LIMA e ANGOLA, além do paquete alemão MONTE ROSA.

Funchal Bay, Madeira Island, on the evening of 31st December 1935, a beautiful sunny day with a great fleet of passenger and cruise ships in port waiting for the famous New Years's fireworks. From left to right, the Portuguese Navy sloop NRP PEDRO NUNES, the passenger ships AGUILA (Yeoward Line), LIMA (Empresa Insulana), COLUMBUS (Norddeutscher Lloyd), VOLTAIRE (Lamport & Holt), MILWAUKEE (Hapag), ANGOLA (Companhia Nacional) and CAP ARCONA (Hamburg Sud). A second Hamburg Sud liner, the MONTE ROSA was also in port on that day but is not depicted on the image 

A great fleet of passenger ships, most of them on cruises. The tragic events started four years later - WW2 - led to the loss of all those ships, only the Portuguese ANGOLA and LIMA and the German MONTE ROSA were still afloat in 1945 after the war was over in Europe.

Texto e imagens /Text and images copyright L.M.Correia. Favor não piratear. Respeite o meu trabalho, se descarregar imagens para uso pessoal sugere-se que contribua para a manutenção deste espaço fazendo um donativo via Paypal, sugerindo-se €1,00 por imagem retirada. Utilização comercial ou para fins lucrativos não permitida (ver coluna ao lado) / No piracy, please. If photos are downloaded for personal use we suggest that a small contribution via Paypal (€1,00 per image or more). Photos downloaded for commercial or other profit making uses are not allowed. For other posts and images, check our archive at the right column of the main page. Click on the photos to see them enlarged. Thanks for your visit and comments. Luís Miguel Correia

CINEMA SOB AS ESTRELAS

A Princess Cruises há uns anos lembrou-se de dotar os seus navios de cruzeiros com grandes ecrans exteriores para proporcionar aos passageiros, que na linguistica da companhia são "convidados" pagantes, é claro, à americana, sessões de cinema sob as estrelas. O sucesso foi imediato e logo as outras grandes trataram de a imitar. Pois claro. Só que 50 anos  antes já a portuguesíssima Companhia Nacional de Navegação equipava os seus paquetes da carreira de África com enormes ecrans para cinema sob as estrelas. Ora observem o mastro principal (mainmast, o da ré) do paquete ANGOLA (1948-1974) e vejam lá o ecran para cinemascópio.

Fotografia do Paquete ANGOLA o quarto desse nome na frota da Nacional, a sair de Durban em Agosto de 1969, fotografado pelo meu amigo Prof. Trevor Jones. E que bonito que o navio era com a chaminé preta original e a popa de cruzador à inglesa. E lá está o cinema à luz das estrelas by Companhia Nacional... E pensar que nas últimas décadas a cambada de sempre destruiu tudo com a desmaritimização.

Texto e imagens /Text and images copyright L.M.Correia. Favor não piratear. Respeite o meu trabalho / No piracy, please. For other posts and images, check our archive at the right column of the main page. Click on the photos to see them enlarged. Thanks for your visit and comments. Luís Miguel Correia

The ANCHOR LINE Indian Run

Bill Miller writes about the old Scottish steamship company Anchor Line, of Glasgow:

"The smell of curry!  "They were said to be the best kept, most immaculate passenger ships using the port of Liverpool in the 1950s & '60s," said Mike McDougle, who served aboard Britain's long-gone Anchor Line and aboard the Company's three, 11,000-ton passenger ships, the Caledonia, Cilicia & Circassia, which carried up to 300 one-class passengers each.   "We were on the Indian run – sailing by way of Gibraltar, Port Said and the Suez Canal to Karachi and, the final stop, to Bombay.   We carried very few tourists actually, but mostly government people, lots of the old colonials, businessmen, tea merchants and Indians including the occasional maharaja.   Those Indian princes traveled with entire entourages that occupied as many as a dozen cabins onboard.   One royal, I think it was the Maharaja of Rawalpindi, had a stateroom just for his pet falcon."

"These Anchor liners were famed for their cuisine," added Mike.   "They had all-Indian galley crews that prepared the most wonderful curries.   Just having, say, lunch aboard at Liverpool was a treat.   Anchor Line food was equal to the finest Indian restaurant.  Anchor was also noted for its exceptional maintenance and shipboard care.   Everything, even the engine room, was in pristine condition.   Even though these ships were over 20 years of age, it was as if they'd just left the shipyard."

Luís Miguel Correia end note: In Portugal the Companhia Colonial de Navegação had an unofficial link to Anchor Line in two ways: 
In 1929 CCN purchased from Anchor Line the liner ASSYRIA and as the COLONIAL she served under the Portuguese colours until sold for breaking up in 1950.
 Then at the end of WW2 an agreement between the Governments of Portugal and Great Britain gave priority to the building of merchant ships in British yards for Portuguese owners. CCN ordered two fine 13 000 grt passenger liners from John Brown of Clydebank, the PÁTRIA, delivered in December 1947 and the IMPÉRIO, delivered six months later while the rival Companhia Nacional de Navegação (CNN) ordered two passenger motor ships of similar size but of more modern design from Newcastle yards, the sisters ANGOLA and MOÇAMBIQUE. 

The CCN pair was built and delivered one years in advance of the Nacional sisters mainly because instead of designing the PÁTRIA and IMPÉRIO from scratch, original plans developed by John Brown for Anchor Line before WW2  were used and adapted to Cia. Colonial requirements. This saved a full year and in fact The Colonial sisters were very similar in terms of exterior design to the Anchor final three passenger liners.

Built for the Lisbon-East Africa passenger and mail service, the PÁTRIA and the IMPÉRIO only made one voyage each homebound by Suez, the IMPÉRIO in the 1950s and the PÁTRIA in 1962 when she sailed from Mozambique for Karachi and then home to Lisbon. 

Further to the official mail service, the Portuguese liners also cruised from time to time and also used to embark in Cape Town and Durban tourists from South Africa for the round coastal trip up to Mozambique and back, using the first class cabins alloted to passenger from Angola and left vacant after the ships sailed South from Moçamedes. 
There was always a group of South African cruise passengers aboard when the ships sailed the Indian Ocean and often there was occasion for romance between young Portuguese ship officers and S.A. pretty girls, some giving way to weddings.

Texto e imagens /Text and images copyright L.M.Correia. Favor não piratear. Respeite o meu trabalho / No piracy, please. For other posts and images, check our archive at the right column of the main page. Click on the photos to see them enlarged. Thanks for your visit and comments. Luís Miguel Correia

Navios portugueses do século XX: paquete ANGOLA

Continuando a divulgar as imagens de navios portugueses oriundas da Direcção da Marinha Mercante, esta fotografia do paquete ANGOLA (1948-1974) é muito curiosa, apresentando as linhas particularmente elegantes e modernas - para a época - deste quarto ANGOLA da velha Nacional. A chaminé mostra a faixa azul inicial, introduzida a partir de 1970, cor depois alargada aliás de forma feliz. O casco está sujo e de facto as nossas tripulações muitas vezes não primavam por manter os seus navios impecáveis... Acabou por ser mais um paquete desmantelado na Formosa na década de 1970. Olhando para ele agora, bem que podia ter sido convertido para cruzeiros.

Texto e imagens /Text and images copyright L.M.Correia. Favor não piratear. Respeite o meu trabalho / No piracy, please. For other posts and images, check our archive at the right column of the main page. Click on the photos to see them enlarged. Thanks for your visit and comments. Luís Miguel Correia

NOVA LISBOA at Lourenço Marques

Portuguese passenger and mail liner NOVA LISBOA ex-ANGOLA, ex- ALBERTVILLE of 1912, photographed in July 1946 at Lourenço Marques, Mozambique by Uli Wessmann. 

She had just been renamed to free the name for the new ANGOLA which was introduced in December 1948 and operated until January 1974. The NOVA LISBOA had been purchased from Cie Maritime Belge in 1923.

Texto e imagens /Text and images copyright L.M.Correia. Favor não piratear. Respeite o meu trabalho / No piracy, please. For other posts and images, check our archive at the right column of the main page. Click on the photos to see them enlarged. Thanks for your visit and comments. Luís Miguel Correia

Paquete ANGOLA em Lourenço Marques

A Empresa e a Companhia Nacional de Navegação, sucessora da primeira a partir de 1918, teve na sua frota quatro navios com o nome ANGOLA, o último dos quais foi o magnifico paquete ANGOLA (1948-1974), construído em Newcastle, tal como o seu irmão gémeo MOÇAMBIQUE (1949-1972).

As duas fotografias que aqui apresento foram enviadas por Uli Wessmann, que fotografou este nosso paquete em 1955 (foto PB) e 1959 (cores) no porto de Lourenço Marques. Ambas as imagens proporcionam uma certa magia associada a um navio bonito que bem podia ter navegado mais uns anos. 

Texto e imagens /Text and images copyright L.M.Correia. Favor não piratear. Respeite o meu trabalho / No piracy, please. For other posts and images, check our archive at the right column of the main page. Click on the photos to see them enlarged. Thanks for your visit and comments. Luís Miguel Correia

Portuguese liner ANGOLA

The handsome Portuguese passenger and mail liner ANGOLA (1948-1974).
The fourth ship to bear the name ANGOLA in the fleet of Empresa and Companhia Nacional de Navegação, the British-built ANGOLA was sister to the MOÇAMBIQUE (II) of 1949.
Both ships operated on the Lisbon - East Africa service in tandem with the sisters PÁTRIA and IMPÉRIO of the rival Companhia Colonial.
In this photograph, the ANGOLA looks fully loaded, probably she is moving from CNN's Fundição terminal, at Santa Apolónia, Lisbon, to berth at the Alcântara Passenger Terminal to embark the passengers for another trip to África...
Texto e imagens /Text and images copyright L.M.Correia. For other posts and images, check our archive at the right column of the main page. Click on the photos to see them enlarged. Thanks for your visit and comments. Luís Miguel Correia

NAVIOS DO DESPACHO 100

Recordando alguns dos 56 navios de comércio construídos entre 1946 e 1955 ao abrigo do Plano de Renovação da Marinha de Comércio conhecido por DESPACHO 100: de cima para baixo, o ANGOLA, o VERA CRUZ, o ALMEIRIM, o INDIA e uma vista aérea do cais da Rocha em Abril de 1962 com o UIGE na doca seca nº 1, e os paquetes SANTA MARIA, INFANTE DOM HENRIQUE e VERA CRUZ atracados à estação marítima.
Do conjunto de quatro paquetes da última imagem, só o VERA CRUZ e o UIGE integraram o DESPACHO 100, pois além dos navios do Plano, muitos outros foram então adquiridos pelos principais armadores portugueses.
Os 56 navios do Despacho 100 somavam 339.407 toneladas de porte bruto e custaram 3.105.935.000$00, uma soma muito elevada para a época.
Text and images copyright L.M.Correia. For other posts and images, check our archive at the right column of the main page. Thanks for your visit and comments. Luís Miguel Correia