Trans-Pacific Trade
p. 31 · Read in the full issue
Improving
Connections
Another Ship for Trans-Pacific Trade
Trans-pacific shipping con nections, which are gradually improving, have received an other boost with the announcement by General Steamship Corporation of San Francisco and the Pacific Islands Transport Line; that an additional carg o-a n d-passenger vessel will take up the running in parallel with their vessel Thorsisle.
The newcomer is the Thorshall, a sister ship to Thorsisle, with a dead weight tonnage of 6,265 tons, and a service speed of 15 knots. She will enter the service to Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, New Guinea—and wher ever else along the route that cargoes are offering—about July.
Together the two vessels will in future maintain 35-40 day sailings.
From 1938 to the outbreak of war, this Line operated the Velox and Thor I. Then Velox was withdrawn, leaving Thor I as about the only vessel to maintain a regular Pacific Coast-Islands civilian service right through the war —and Papeete’s only regular passenger connection with the outside world for a long time.
Thor I was withdrawn and re placed by Thorsisle in 1952, and the service has been extended westward to New Guinea in recent years— Noumea was formerly the western terminus.