Moller Line

[Doc Vernon]

Hi Simon

Welcome to this great site,and i am sure you will get to love it,its sort of catching,and eventually you will need it as your daily Fix haha!
Lots of info and a few Laughs along the way!
I am also sure that given time,you will find a few old mates that sailed with you!
Sit back relax and grab a Tinny!
Cheers

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi Simon.
Don't know if these were some of the ships you were looking for. The Nancy Moller and the Daisy Moller were sunk by the Japanese in the last war. I believe they machine gunned and or beheaded the crews.
Cheers Des

[happy daze john in oz]

G'day Simon nad welcome to the best site in town. If you care to add some dates to those ships you may well get replies from some who knew you. So sit back with a cold one and enjoy the voyage.

[happy daze john in oz]

G'day Taff, yes there was a terrible slaughter took place with regards to the crew of the ship taken by the Japs. Late at night the crew were brought one at a time to the quarter deck where they were cerimoniously beheaded and their bodies thrown into the sea. The executione were spread over a couple of nights. After the war the capatin was tried for war crimes.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi John.
I think Billy wrote something about the Moller ships. The blokes that sailed on the Artic and Atlantic convoys suffered God knows, but in the main were treated humanly by the Germans, Not so the blokes in the Pacific and Indian Oceans but those murderous sods the Japs.
Cheers Des

[porkysraft]

Simon:

For what it is worth, I am the nephew of Eric, Ralph (Budgy) and Chris Moller.
I too have been seeking information about Mollers shipping,
Unfortunatly the company died when Eric passed away in the late eighties. He had taken over the concern, including the horse racing, when Budgy died in 1982 and nobody from the family was allowed to visit White Lodge stud, later sold to Sheik Mahommad. The horses continued to race under a trust but I do not not know what has happened to them now as they do not seem to be active.
I believe that my uncle saw himself as the last emporer and did not want the family to carry on the business. I saw him soon before his death as I and my mother (his sister Isobel, better known as "Dido") lived next door in London and had dinner with him every week.
The old family home built by my grandfather, Nils, is still functioning as the Hang Shu Moller Villa Hotel in Shanghai. Apparently, in it's heyday it was a very grand place.
At the age of 12 I made a trip on one of the ships, The 600ft bulk carrier "Chapel River" from Taranto, Italy, to Bahia Blanca in Argentina with a cargo of steel pipes. The return voyage was from Vitoria in Braazil to Genoa with iron ore. The ship was chartered to another company at the time, who I do not remember, and I went after pestering my uncle about joining as a "cabin boy." Instead of continuing my earlierambitions of becoming a captain, I persued a career inmarine and travel photography and did not enter the company when the opportunity was presented.
I rememeber my grandmother and my mother travelling to Blyth for the launching of the "Blyth Adventurer" in 1958 or 1959. My grandmother performed the ceremony. I believe that Mollers owned or ran Blyth shipyards at the time. Theer was also an earlier connection with Hull,
In the late 70's or early 80's my mother travelld to Japan to launch the "Muncaster Castle" for Chris Moller's Red Anchor line at Misubishi, and until a recent robbery I had a ceremonial silver axe in my posession to mark the occasion.
Curiously, the captain of that vessel had been a cadet on the Chapel River during my South American trip and had been given orders not to let the silly bugger fall overboard!!
If anyone wishes to contat me I shall be pleased to give any other information about Mollers, the family,Whampoa docks and Shanghai that I have. At the present there are some members of the family attempting to resolve the jigsaw of the family tree.

Michael Feeney

[John Munro]

I spent a couple of years as a sparks on the Coral River. She was an old Shell tanker and the whole crew flew out from UK and we spent several months in HK and everyday down at the HK whampoa shipyard.
She was converted into a Bulky. Super fun. The owners were in HK at the time...very hospitable. Initally we went an island just south of HK in Communist China (then) and from there to Poland etc etc
john munro

[John Castle]

I sailed on the mv Coral River from January 1960 until September 1960 as third mate. She was a great ship, correctly identified as a converted Shell tanker. British officers and engineers and a Chinese crew. Details of the Coral River are official number 149490 net tonnage 3932.52 gross tunnage 7775 Powered by a Burmeinster and wein diesel engine. She was converted to carry iron ore, If my memory serves me right there was a second ship with the suffix river sailing out of the UK and a substantial fleet sailing in the far east, I believe hearing of 40 plus ships, but have no further details. The Coral River was i believe built in the 1930's and had little in the way of navigational equipment other than a dodgy radar and RDF. I remember sailing across the north Atlantic to Seven Islands in the St Lawrence at the end of the iceberg season, the skipper was canny and the ship was stopped and allowed to drift overnight as we approached Canadiian waters to minimise the possibility of contact with ice bergs.
Any body else out there remember those days.
John C.

[Michael Kane]

Was the Burmuda Trader actually spelt the Bermuda Trader - my father John Kane (second engineer) was on this boat I recall him telling me. There is a photo somewhere of the boat and him with a fellow crew member. Previously the BT was also named the Empire Marshal

[MIKE CUTCHIE]

My father (Capt. AW Cutchie) was the pilot who launched the Chapel River in 1962, then took it in sea trials.
Budgie Moller came to our home in Blyth to celebrate the successful launch.
I still possess photos of the launch of the ship, plus it putting to sea on trials, unfortunately on a grey, overcast day.

Mike Cutchie

Simon:

For what it is worth, I am the nephew of Eric, Ralph (Budgy) and Chris Moller.
I too have been seeking information about Mollers shipping,
Unfortunatly the company died when Eric passed away in the late eighties. He had taken over the concern, including the horse racing, when Budgy died in 1982 and nobody from the family was allowed to visit White Lodge stud, later sold to Sheik Mahommad. The horses continued to race under a trust but I do not not know what has happened to them now as they do not seem to be active.
I believe that my uncle saw himself as the last emporer and did not want the family to carry on the business. I saw him soon before his death as I and my mother (his sister Isobel, better known as "Dido") lived next door in London and had dinner with him every week.
The old family home built by my grandfather, Nils, is still functioning as the Hang Shu Moller Villa Hotel in Shanghai. Apparently, in it's heyday it was a very grand place.
At the age of 12 I made a trip on one of the ships, The 600ft bulk carrier "Chapel River" from Taranto, Italy, to Bahia Blanca in Argentina with a cargo of steel pipes. The return voyage was from Vitoria in Braazil to Genoa with iron ore. The ship was chartered to another company at the time, who I do not remember, and I went after pestering my uncle about joining as a "cabin boy." Instead of continuing my earlierambitions of becoming a captain, I persued a career inmarine and travel photography and did not enter the company when the opportunity was presented.
I rememeber my grandmother and my mother travelling to Blyth for the launching of the "Blyth Adventurer" in 1958 or 1959. My grandmother performed the ceremony. I believe that Mollers owned or ran Blyth shipyards at the time. Theer was also an earlier connection with Hull,
In the late 70's or early 80's my mother travelld to Japan to launch the "Muncaster Castle" for Chris Moller's Red Anchor line at Misubishi, and until a recent robbery I had a ceremonial silver axe in my posession to mark the occasion.
Curiously, the captain of that vessel had been a cadet on the Chapel River during my South American trip and had been given orders not to let the silly bugger fall overboard!!
If anyone wishes to contat me I shall be pleased to give any other information about Mollers, the family,Whampoa docks and Shanghai that I have. At the present there are some members of the family attempting to resolve the jigsaw of the family tree.

Michael Feeney