P&O Ships built in Leith

The twin screw motor vessel MOMBASA Ship No 379

While research has been going on into all the ships built in the Leith Shipyards of Henry Robb an amazing fact has come to light.



Where it was thought before that (apart from the Royal Navy) the biggest customer of the shipyard was the Ellerman Wilson Line, when in fact it turns out to have been the giant shipping group P&O.

The P&O group owned a number of the shipping lines that were big customers of the yard, such as the British India Steam Navigation Company (6 ships built) Coast Lines (4 ships built) The General Steam Navigation Company Ltd, (11 ships built) along with the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand (with more than 20 ships built)


Last minute cruise deals at Expedia.com!

P&O being the huge concern that it is are also very proud of there history and have a very good website with a lot of history and data on the ships that they through there many various companies owned and had built over the years. You can find more here at P&O Heritage.

The P&O Heritage collection have been very helpful in collating some of the information on ships built in Leith and have also supplied some of the official photographs from there vast collection to be shown on the website of leithshipyards.

MOMBASA

M.V. MOMBASA

Ship No 379

Was an order from the British India Steam Navigation Company, one of the largest shipping lines of the day.

The order was for a Twin Screw Passenger Cargo vessel, and she was used on the Mombasa to Mtwara service via Zanzibar - Dar es Salaam - Kilwa and Lindi.

She was 250 feet in length with a beam of 43 feet and a draught of 19 feet.

Tonnage : 2, 213g, 1,090n, 1, 364dwt.

Engines: Twin Screw 2 x 5 Cylinder 2S.C.S.A Polar Diesels, 1, 600 BHP, 250 rpm, 13.8 Knots (Trials).

Passengers: 8 First Class, 16 Second Class, 250 Deck.

Refrigerated space 2, 000 cu ft.

Launched 21st October 1949, completed 29th January 1950.

She served this route for ten years before being sold on and re-named Kareem, she was finally broken up in 1968.