QSMV Dominion Monarch

Dominion Monarch
History
United Kingdom
Name:	Dominion Monarch (1939–62) Dominion Monarch Maru (1962)
Owner:	Shaw, Savill & Albion Line (1939–62) Mitsui (1962)
Port of registry:	Southampton
Route:	1939 and 1947–55: London – Las Palmas – Cape Town – Fremantle – Melbourne – Sydney – Wellington 1955–61: As above, plus: Wellington – Suva – Papeete – Panama – Curaçao – London
Builder:	Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson
Cost:	£1,500,000
Yard number:	1547
Laid down:	14 July 1937
Launched:	27 July 1938
Completed:	12 January 1939
Maiden voyage:	17 February 1939
Out of service:	21 April 1962
Identification:	UK official number 166828 call sign and code letters GRGG
Nickname(s):	"D.M." "Dominion Maniac" "The Bucket of Blood"
General characteristics
Class and type:	Refrigerated cargo liner
Tonnage:	27,155 GRT tonnage under deck 18,390 15,183 NRT
Length:	657.6 ft (200.4 m) p/p
Beam:	84.8 ft (25.8 m)
Draught:	34 ft 1 1⁄2 in (10.40 m)
Depth:	44.4 ft (13.5 m)
Decks:	6
Installed power:	5,056 NHP or 32,000 bhp
Propulsion:	marine diesel engines; four screws
Speed:	21.5 knots (39.8 km/h)
Capacity:	1939–40: 525 1st class passengers 1940–47: 3,556 troops 1948–62: 508 1st class passengers Holds: 650,000 cubic feet (18,000 m3), taking about 3,600 tons general cargo & 12,800 tons frozen meat or dairy produce
Crew:	385 (in civilian service)
Sensors and processing systems:	wireless direction finding echo sounding device gyrocompass
Armament:	DEMS from September 1939: 1 × BL 6-inch Mk VII naval gun 1 × anti-aircraft gun (type not known) Armament upgraded December 1940
Notes:	1939 records: World's most powerful motor liner; Fastest voyage from Britain to Australia via Cape of Good Hope; Largest merchant ship to Australia; Largest merchant ship to New Zealand All time record: Largest passenger and cargo liner with all first-class accommodation

QSMV Dominion Monarch was a British refrigerated cargo liner. Her name was a reference to the Dominion of New Zealand. The unusual prefix "QSMV" stood for quadruple-screw motor vessel.

The ship was built in England in 1937–39, and when new she set a number of records for her size and power. She operated between Britain and New Zealand via Australia in civilian service 1938–40 and 1948–62 and was a troop ship 1940–47. She spent half of 1962 in the Port of Seattle as a floating hotel for the Century 21 Exposition and was then scrapped in Japan.

Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson of Wallsend, built Dominion Monarch as yard number 1547 for Shaw, Savill & Albion Line. Her keel was laid on 14 July 1937 in one of Swan Hunter's West Yards. She represented a transition in steel shipbuilding, as the decks and butts of her topside plating were assembled by electric welding (then relatively new in British shipyards) but the rest of her hull were assembled by the more traditional method of rivetting. She cost £1,500,000 to build.

Eleanor, Lady Harrison, wife of Frederick Lewis, 1st Baron Essendon launched the ship on 27 July 1938. The London and North Eastern Railway laid on a special train that ran non-stop from London to Wallsend. Hauled by locomotive № 4492 Dominion of New Zealand, it carried dignitaries including the High Commissioners of Australia, South Africa, Southern Rhodesia and New Zealand. Baron Essendon was Chairman of Furness Withy, which had been Shaw, Savill & Albion's parent company since 1933.

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