# SS Manhattan



## jerome morris (May 27, 2008)

She’s about finished.
Been a challenge but I think it plays the part quite well.
Now for some slight weathering.


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## Wismajorvik (Dec 29, 2011)

Superb!


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

Great model. Is she the one who carved out the Northwest Passage?

John T


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## Stephen J. Card (Nov 5, 2006)

Fine model! 

Yes, Northwest Passage! Remember following that in Nat Geographic... must about 1960.

Stephen


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## IDH (Nov 28, 2006)

Unmistakable. Looks fantastic always one of my favourites. What scale would that be ?
Once met one of the scientists from BAS who was onboard on the transit of the North West Passage.


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## Cisco (Jan 29, 2007)

Saw her in Fawley in 1965 when she was a bog standard tanker ... biggest under US flag.... I think her beneficial owner as built was Niarchos....

NWP trip was in 69ish


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## Stephen J. Card (Nov 5, 2006)

Heavens! 1969!


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## R798780 (Oct 27, 2004)

I saw Manhatten's original bow section on a quayside partway up the Delaware river sometime around 1970. A 65 foot section replaced with a new 125 foot icebreaker bow.


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## Stephen J. Card (Nov 5, 2006)

R798780 said:


> I saw Manhatten's original bow section on a quayside partway up the Delaware river sometime around 1970. A 65 foot section replaced with a new 125 foot icebreaker bow.



Found a few clips of the rebuilding, bow etc.. on YOUTUBE.

Search: s.s. Manhattan - North West


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## jerome morris (May 27, 2008)

She was quite the ship in her day.
Thank you for the compliments.
The scale is 1/16 th of an inch = 1 foot
Or 1/192 scale.
Big model none the less at 62+ inches long.


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## Wallace Slough (Mar 21, 2009)

I believe Captain Stillman was Chief Mate on her for her voyage to the Norhtwest Passage. Captain Stillman was later master of the Exxon Galveston which was engaged in lightering larger tankers in San Francisco Bay.


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## Steve Hodges (Feb 12, 2007)

jerome morris said:


> She was quite the ship in her day.
> Thank you for the compliments.
> The scale is 1/16 th of an inch = 1 foot
> Or 1/192 scale.
> Big model none the less at 62+ inches long.


A splendid model, sir! As it is a waterline model I assume its for static display somewhere? I understand that Americans have big houses, but that really is pushing things a bit. I dread to think what my wife would say if I emerged from the workshop with something like that.....


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## jerome morris (May 27, 2008)

Steve, She is actually heading to the American Merchant Marine Museum, on the grounds of the US Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, NY.
She will be on display there for a good long time.


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## Steve Hodges (Feb 12, 2007)

That's excellent, Jerome, the more folk that can see her, the better. Please accept the appreciation of an old tankerman and not-very-good modeller.


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## reefrat (Nov 4, 2007)

hat a remarkable site this is. I mentioned in another thread about seeing the largest tanker to enter the Thames while passing downstream on the Himalaya bound Tilbury/Melbourne, early in 1965.
She was pointed out by the Master, but for the life of me couldn't remember her name, old age and confusion were blamed and an association with the atom bomb dimly recalled was obviously just senile fumbling

But thanks to Davieth there she is, the "MANHATTAN" as reported by the Master as being 109,000 DWT

219369 MANHATTAN 1962-00 108588dwt L 116508 United States Of America Total Loss
My post of 10 years ago


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## Stephen J. Card (Nov 5, 2006)

Footnote.

in 1965 MANHATTAN was chartered for a voyage from Oregon. She was cleaned and then loaded a 50,000 tonnes of grain. Unfortunately there are no details on the discharge port.

I wonder if she came to the Thames for oil or grain!

The NorthWest passage. The crude cargo that was carried on that voyage consisted on ONE BARREL ! That must have been a record for sure.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

#16 . "The NorthWest passage. The crude cargo that was carried on that voyage consisted on ONE BARREL ! That must have been a record for sure."

Ha ha. I never knew that. What a swizz! Anybody following her route with a full cargo would have had to be careful with depths of water.

John T


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## Frank P (Mar 13, 2005)

trotterdotpom said:


> #16 . "The NorthWest passage. The crude cargo that was carried on that voyage consisted on ONE BARREL ! That must have been a record for sure."
> 
> Ha ha. I never knew that. What a swizz! Anybody following her route with a full cargo would have had to be careful with depths of water.
> 
> John T


John, I doubt that she was completely empty, they probably had a full "cargo" of water just in case something went wrong.................(Thumb)
Frank


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## Cisco (Jan 29, 2007)

Stephen J. Card said:


> Footnote.
> 
> in 1965 MANHATTAN was chartered for a voyage from Oregon. She was cleaned and then loaded a 50,000 tonnes of grain. Unfortunately there are no details on the discharge port.
> 
> ...


In the mid 60's rather a lot of grain was being shipped in tankers ( and regular US flagged ships) from the US to India/Pakistan... subsidised grain shipped in the name of 'Aid'.... good for midwest farmers ... not even remotely good for the farmers of Bengal..
I think all the 'aid' was shipped in US bottoms...

Moving right along... I have an LSI which has Manhattan departing Seattle May 5th 1965 bound Pakistan

Moving a bit further along... I think at about the same time grain was also being shipped from the US to USSR Black Sea ports... seem to recall Manhattan once went to Novorossiysk... must have been a drought.... must do some research......

And a bit further down the track ... my father was master with World-Wide for a few years in the mid 60's... one ship he was on was 'World Reliance'... run was Canada to Gulf of Kutch with grain .. lie at anchor for a few months... then up to the PG ... oil to Northern Europe.... tank clean on the way to Canada... repeat.... don't think he enjoyed it very much...


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## Cisco (Jan 29, 2007)

Research completed..

'The owners of the 104,000‐ton grain‐carrying tanker Manhattan have offered to assume extra costs of lightering the ships cargo if she is accepted in grain voyages to Russia.

Cargill, Inc., which has sold 700,000 tons of grain to Russia, was reported yesterday to have turned down the big Manhattan and a smaller ship, the Transeastern, despite a new agreement worked out in Russia this week for acceptance of the deep‐draft ships.'


https://www.nytimes.com/1964/03/05/...-grain-manhattan-owners-would-absorb-the.html

Recall reading something at the time...


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

Frank P said:


> John, I doubt that she was completely empty, they probably had a full "cargo" of water just in case something went wrong.................(Thumb)
> Frank


Never thought of that, Frank. Makes sense on a "ground breaking mission".

Re grain cargos. LOF had a few converted tankers carrying grain from the US to Russia in the '70s. A large proportion of it was condemned on arrival.

John T


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## Cisco (Jan 29, 2007)

A rather old thread here https://www.shipsnostalgia.com/showthread.php?t=14402 with some interesting posts re grain in tankers.


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## Wismajorvik (Dec 29, 2011)

I was in Bangladesh when the Manhattan delivered grain, (or was it CSM). Interesting State Department report here :-

https://www.gao.gov/assets/210/203144.pdf

Recollect that helicopters were used to bring part of the cargo ashore.


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## Stephen J. Card (Nov 5, 2006)

Then along came O.B.O.'s. Nasty ships! Not good for tanker men and not good for bulker men either!


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## david freeman (Jan 26, 2006)

dear sir, you may be interested to read the blogs under the BP SHIPPING heading and the Manhattan Project, and BP's interest in the NW Passage, as a practical development of shipping crude from the Prudoe Bay oil Field to the east coast of the USA, against pipelines to the west coast, and transUSA pipelines.
The then BP shipping representative on this voyage was a senior naval architect from BP Tankers a gent called Paul Hayward.


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## peachymeyer (Apr 15, 2015)

That is a very cool model!

After a medical hiatus, and dealing now with pandemic cabin fever, I am back to dithering about my uncle's ship. I saw her loading hard winter wheat in 1964 in Destrehan, Port of New Orleans. The Master, my uncle Fred Meyer, told me that this ship was the largest American tanker converted to bulk carrier, could fit in only three ports, and was bound for Russia with the wheat. He told me about the dangers and problems of carrying grain in a tanker. My sister vaguely recalled that the ship was called Columbia, and I subsequently dug up old family photos of that ship and discovered on Google, assisted by Ships Nostalgia, that she was a converted T2 tanker built in 1944 and previously named Chadd's Ford and Esso Greenville. The photos were taken in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea by Fred and my Aunt ("Ship's Librarian"). 
I cannot find any records of the SS Columbia's having carried grain, just steel, as she belonged to US Steel at the time. However, the bit about the largest ship (and the wheat deal and the year) stuck with me and could possibly indicate the Manhattan (considerably bigger than Columbia); I did at one time unearth the name of Manhattan's Master for the trip to Russia, but it wasn't Fred Meyer. I have never figured out how to get information from the US National Archives, so I just have anecdotal snippets, and our family's generation of merchant mariners is long gone. Plus, when they were around, my father and uncles were prone to making good stories. Does anyone know anything to add or any hints? 
(Please pardon repeats; my memory isn't overly reliable.)






SS Columbia, 1964


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