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Built as a cargo-reefer vessel under yard no 1763 by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson, Wallsend for the Port Line Ltd., London.
04 January 1949launched under the name PORT BRISBANE.
Tonnage 11.942 gross, 6.836 net, 11.877 dwt., dim. 559.11 x 70.3 x 35ft. draught 29.4ft.
Powered by two Doxford 6 cyl. engines, 13.200 bhp., speed 17 knots, twin crews.
Passenger accommodation for 12 passengers.
Cargo capacity 236.000 cubic feet general cargo and 560.000 cubic feet reefer cargo.
1949 Delivered to owners.

She was visited by HM the Queen and Princess Margaret on 3 March 1949 at the King George V docks in London
Built for the cargo service between the U.K. and Australia en New Zealand.
Her reefer cargo holds were entirely sheathed with aluminium-alloy sheets, cost saving in cleaning and weight and more durable than wood. She was the first reefer vessel fitted out with these sheets.
(Most of the older reefer vessels I have sailed on, did have the same sheating, but after a winter crossing of the North Atlantic many times the sheets were complete pushed in, and the holds looked like of there had been an explosion inside, it took us days to repair the damage. The reefers I sailed on the last 20 years had all wooden weatherboard sheating, much stronger, and I never have seen that it was pushed in.)
23 March 1949 sailed from London on her maiden voyage under Captain W.G. Higgs the commodore of the Port Line fleet, and via Las Palmas and the Cape of Good Hope she headed for Australia.
She served the company well; I could not find any mishap.
Sold in 1975 to Loy Kee at Hong Kong for breaking up, she arrived in Hong Kong on 2 November 1975.
23 December 1975 work commenced.

New Zealand 1957 8d sg 759, scott317

Register of Merchant Ships Completed in 1949. The ships that serve New Zealand vol. 1 by I.G.Stewart.
Info I received from Mr. John D.Stevenson, who made a relief coastal voyage on her in 1955.

Mr. Peter C.Crichton did give that the vessel most probably was misidentified and that the PORT AUCKLAND was depict on the stamp.
From Mr Rosner I got an enlarged scan of the stamp, and from Mr John D Stevenson scans of photo’s of the two ships.
He wrote:
There were certainly differences, albeit fairly minor ones.
1) Funnel size and its streamlining.
2) Numbers of windows, but not show on the stamp.

Lloyds List on 1966 shows the BRISBANE with 18 derricks and the AUCKLAND with 17, (one of mine sources gives that the AUCKLAND carried a crane behind the bridge)
Then he wrote when you ask me to put money on this one I would say 60/40 PORT AUCKLAND-the size of the funnel would sway it.


I agree with Mr Stevenson that the PORT AUCKLAND is depict, when you look very careful to the funnel, it is not the funnel of the PORT BRISBANE.

I will give below what is given in “All the Stamps of New Zealand”, by Laurie Franks. And the book gives that the PORT BRISBANE is depict, but not always you can believe what information the Post Office is given on the stamp.


1957 FROZEN MEAT EXPORT.

The meat producers Board asked the Post Office for philatelic recognition of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the beginning of the meat export trade (shown previously on the 6d 1940 Centenary). It was decided to issue two stamps, 4d and 8d, both featuring a New Zealand lamb. On the 4d it is astride an outline map of New Zealand and on the 8d it is beside an outline of the first refrigerated ship to leave New Zealand, the DUNEDIN, which carried 5.000 carcasses of lamb in 1882, and the modern mv PORT BRISBANE, which carries 350.000 carcasses in one third of the time.
The Meat Producers Board gave considerable publicity to the stamps, and many New Zealand post offices used the slogan “New Zealand Lamb – Best in the World” on their postmarking machines.
Some praised the designs for being simple and effective, while some felt there was little art involved in putting a photo of a sheep over an outline of a map or two ships. Perhaps the latter might have preferred a mob of sheep, a truck off to the freezing works, a chain of carcasses, watersiders loading, and a family sitting down to a meal – all in the one design? The writer prefers (Laurie Franks) the existing designs, which carry their message simply and effectively. The lettering is simple, dignified and clearly legible. Perhaps another value showing the countries to which meat was sold might have completed the story- and have interested collectors there in both our meat and our stamps!
The stamps appeared on 15 February and were withdrawn on 31 August 1957. Only 1.500.000 were printed of each value, but as many of the 8d were used on aerogrammes going overseas, this is the scarcer value. The designer was R.Clark.


Auke Palmhof.