Ocean ship
Ocean Traveller launch, August, 1942
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Builders: |
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| Operators: | Ministry of War Transport |
| Built: | October 1941 – November 1942 |
| In service: | 1941–1985 |
| Planned: | 60 |
| Completed: | 60 |
| Lost: |
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| Scrapped: | 33 (including two ships lost to enemy action and subsequently salvaged) |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Cargo ship |
| Tonnage: | 7,174 GRT |
| Length: | 416 ft (127 m) |
| Beam: | 57 ft (17 m) |
| Installed power: | Triple expansion steam engine |
| Speed: | 11 knots (20 km/h) |
The Ocean ships were a class of sixty cargo ships built in the United States by Todd Shipyards Corporation during the Second World War for the British Ministry of War Transport under contracts let by the British Purchasing Commission. Eighteen were lost to enemy action and eight to accidents; survivors were sold postwar into merchant service.
To expedite production, the type was based on an existing design, later adapted to become the Liberty ship. Yards constructed to build the Oceans went immediately into production of Liberty hulls. Before and during construction the ships are occasionally mentioned as "British Victory" or victory ships as distinct from the United States variant known as the Liberty ship.
On 19 December 1940 John D. Reilly, president of Todd Shipyards Corporation, announced that contracts totaling $100,000,000 had been signed between two Todd affiliates and the British Purchasing Commission for the construction of sixty cargo ships with thirty to be built at Todd California Shipbuilding Corporation in Richmond, California and thirty at Todd-Bath Iron Shipbuilding, South Portland, Maine. The ships, each estimated at $1,600,000, were to be built in entirely new yards with initial yard construction started 20 December 1940 and yard completion planned in four months with the first keels laid two and a half months after start of the yard construction. Each yard was estimated to need 5,000 or more workers.Henry J. Kaiser, then head of Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation, was to become president of the Todd California entity and William S. Newell, then head of Bath Iron Works, president of the Todd-Bath Iron Shipbuilding entity.
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