The ss Argentina Star was one of four large passenger-cargo ships built after World War 2 by Cammell Lairds at Birkenhead, Merseyside for the Blue Star Line to serve on the UK -South American service.
The Vestey group who owned Blue Star Line also owned Fray Bentos, a well known meat company with factories in Argentina and also the farms where stock was reared before processing. Regular services in luxury surroundings for passengers were enjoyed for over two decades before the jet airliner saw the service wound down. For those who still wished to travel to South America by ship there was the option to sail with Lamport and Holt or Booth Line who ran merchant vessels on a regular schedule to all South American eastern ports including the Amazon river. These companies became part of Blue Star Line in the 1970s.
This Wallace Trickett painting shows Argentina Star at the Canary Isles, one of the regular calls on passage to South America. The commissioned work is the 109th in his series on the companies' ships.
Specifications from bluestarline.org:
Dimensions: 335 x 42.80 x 14 metres
Tonnage: 10716 grt
Propulsion: Three steam turbines by the shipbuilder powered by two Babcock & Wilcox sinuous header boilers, double reduction geared to one shaft
Service speed: 16 knots.
Type: Refrigerated Cargo/Passenger Liner, 53 1st Class passengers, 6 refrigerated hatches
Launched: 26/9/1946
Completed: 06/1947
Sold: 1972 to Nissho-Iwai Co., Japan for demolition, resold to Yi Ho Steel & Iron Works, Taiwan 19/10/1972 and arrived at Kaohsiung to be broken up.
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