Spanish Waters

[Doc Vernon]

LookingBack314.jpg

Being in Spain this week reminded me one of the lesser known trans-Atlantic passenger ship services, the Spanish Line. They had two combination passenger-cargo ships, the 10,000-ton Covadonga & Guadalupe, each of which carrided up to 350 passengers (in first & tourist class quarters) and lots of freight.

The 487ft-long Covadonga & Guadalupe worked a rather extensive service from Bilbao, Santander, Gijon, Vigo and Lisbon across to New York and then southward to Havana (or San Juan) and Vera Cruz, and then in reverse and finally back to Spain.

[Gulliver]

What a lovely pair ! Now those two are the kind of cruise vessel and itinerary I would have liked to have done. Mmm! Lisbon to NY,then Havana,Puerto Rico and, dig out your dusty maracas and castanets......MEH ico !.Then ....what the heck-do a round trip !

í Buen Viaje !

The pair entered service within five months of each other in 1953,and ended their days under the cutting torch twenty years later in 4/73 in Castellon,Spain... still together !

[Robert T. Bush]

Funnel marking similar to the "Cabo Boats" of another sadly defunct Spanish Line, Ybarra. One of their vessels cannot remember its name ran out of Galveston as a gambling boat until some macho US officials went aboard and damaged the equipment. They sailed and did not come back. The company was sold to Transmeditarranea.

[happy daze john in oz]

I doubt somehow the cargon component would have been much on them. At only 10,000 tons and 350 bloods.
On the NZ Paparoa also 10,000 tons we only had room for 8 bloods, but obviously more cargo.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Looking at the colour of the Spanish Ensign, reminds me of the times when taking down flags from steamships whilst wearing whites and trying not to convert the whites into blacks because of the soot laden flags, no amount of wind blew that soot out of the flags