WANTED ON VOYAGE no. 37 “DIESELS DOWN UNDER: R.M.M.S. AORANGI”

[Peter Kohler]

On the occasion of her departure from Southampton for Canada and the Antipodes on a 17,000-mile delivery voyage, exactly 100 years ago on 2 January 1925, I offer a Centenary History of R.M.M.S. AORANGI (1925-1953), the world’s first large diesel-driven express liner:

https://wantedonthevoyage.blogspot.c...s-aorangi.html

Built for New Zealand’s Union Steamship Co. ’s Canadian-Australasian service from Vancouver to Sydney via Victoria, Honolulu, Suva and Auckland, AORANGI was the first of a remarkable group of British quadruple-screw motorliners, the last being DOMINION MONARCH, and proved also to be the last built for the fabled All Red Route to the Antipodes and was Vancouver’s last overseas passenger liner.

During a 28-year career, AORANGI completed 173 crossings from Vancouver to Sydney (every single one of them documented here!) and motored some 1.75 mn. nautical miles including war service.

From True North to Southern Cross, twixt Dominions across distant seas, AORANGI is an exemplar of the British Merchant Navy and British marine engineering as well as New Zealand maritime enterprise at their zenith a century ago.

Peter Kohler

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