SEA SOVEREIGN super tanker (not BILL)

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aukepalmhof
Posts: 7762
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:28 am

SEA SOVEREIGN super tanker (not BILL)

Post by aukepalmhof » Sun Dec 22, 2013 8:44 pm

This stamp is given by Stanley Gibbons as the tanker BILL but not a cargo vessel or tanker under that name exist around that time with the name BILL, it must be a wrong identification.
Any idea which ship is depict, there are two ships most probably the same ship, in the background of the stamp is a stern-section drawing of a ship

Sweden 1974 1k sg823, scott1096.

By Mr advanderpol46 is givens that the Swedish super tanker SEA SOVEREIGN is depict by comparing the stamp with a photo of the ship it looks he is correct.
Some updates are:
01 August 1969 launched as the SEA SOVEREIGN.
Powered by one Kockums-Stal Laval turbine, 32,000 shp., speed 16 knots.
November 1969 completed.

Of her loss what is given as the fraud of the century gives Wikipedia as follows.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_(supertanker)
Attachments
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Last edited by aukepalmhof on Sun Sep 10, 2017 9:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

advanderpol46
Posts: 20
Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2009 5:52 pm

Re: BILL ????

Post by advanderpol46 » Sat Sep 09, 2017 8:00 am

Ship is the " Sea Sovereign " built in 1969 by the shipyard Kockums Mekaniska Verstads AB in Malmö, Sweden.
Built for the Salen Rederierna AB in Stockholm with yardnumber 518, IMO 7000798.
Length 316,1 meter, breadth 48,6 meter and draught 24,5 meter.
Sell in 1977 to Pimmerton in Liberia and renamed " South Sun ".
Sell in 1980 to Oxford Shipping in liberia and renamed " Salem ".
On 17 - 01 - 1980 explosion on board and sunk .
Source internet and Salen Rederierna.
Attachments
sovereign_2.jpg

D. v. Nieuwenhuijzen
Posts: 871
Joined: Fri Sep 24, 2010 7:46 pm

Re: SEA SOVEREIGN supper tanker (not BILL)

Post by D. v. Nieuwenhuijzen » Mon Sep 11, 2017 6:44 pm

Sea Sovereign (1969–1977)
South Sun (1977–1979)
Salem (1979–)
Owner:
Salénrederierna AB (1969–1977)
Pimmerton Shipping Ltd. (1977–1979)
Oxford Shipping Incorporated, Houston
Port of registry:Monrovia
Builder:Kockums Mekaniska Verkstad, Malmö
Christened:1969
Status:Sank 17 January 1980
General characteristics
Class and type: VLCC
Tonnage: 96,228 GRT (other sources gives Gt:107,286, Dw:107,286)
Length: 316.08 m (1,037.0') (LOA)
Beam: 48.77 m (160.0')
Height: 24.50 m (80.4')
Installed power:32,000 hp (24,000 kW)
Propulsion:1 × Stal-Laval steam turbine (other sources gives 2 turbines)
Speed:16 kn. Crew:25.

The tanker, T/T Sea Sovereign, was commissioned in 1969 in Stockholm for Salénrederierna AB and built at the Kockums shipyard in Malmö. In 1977 Salénrederierna sold the tanker to Pimmerton Shipping Ltd. (Liberia), as South Sun and ship management was placed in the hands of Wallem Ship Management Ltd. (Hong Kong). Two years later South Sun was sold to Oxford Shipping Inc. (U.S.). The ship was renamed Salem, but remained under the Liberian flag.

Salem was a supertanker which was scuttled off the coast of Guinea on 17 January 1980, after secretly unloading 192,000 tons of oil in Durban, South Africa. The oil was delivered in breach of the South African oil embargo, and the ship was scuttled to fraudulently claim insurance.

On 30 November 1979 Salem left the port of Piraeus to load oil in the Kuwaiti port of Mina Al Ahmadi, on behalf of an Italian charterer. She loaded approximately 194,000 tons of light crude oil to be discharged in Genoa. The tanker, with its cargo, was insured at Lloyd's of London. She left Mina Al Ahmadi on 10 December and proceeded down the East African coast. On 27 December under the name Lema she entered the port of Durban, South Africa. There, the ship discharged 170–180,000 tons of cargo, and took on the same amount in ballast water in order to stay on a laden draft. She departed Durban on 2 January 1980. On 17 January 1980, under the name Salem, she was found off the Senegalese coast in distress. The British tanker British Trident rescued the crew of the sinking tanker.

Four days after leaving the port of Mina Al Ahmadi, the charterers in Genoa sold the cargo to the Shell Group for [US$]56 million. This type of transaction is not uncommon. When the British tanker Trident rescued the shipwrecked Salem crew, it was observed that not only had the crew taken all their belongings in suitcases but they had gone so far as to rescue a number of other items including duty-free goods and sandwiches, although the tanker was supposed to have sunk so quickly, after several explosions, that there was not enough time to save the ship's log. Far more striking was that, despite the ostensible cargo of nearly 200,000 tons of crude oil and having suffered sufficient explosion damage to cause her to sink, there was barely a trace of the vessel left on the surface.

After Salem′s loss, Lloyd's of London received an insurance claim of US$56.3 million from the owner of the ship. It was the largest single claim that Lloyd's had received up to that time. Research by Lloyd's revealed that the South African oil company Sasol, had bought the Lema / Salem cargo in Durban for US$43 million.
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