Taiyuan III

Sister of the ship Changsha III

History
Aug 1972. Sold to Pacific International Lines Pte. Ltd. Renamed "Kota Sahabat" and employed on the Straits-Hong Kong Canton service.

1978. Converted to a livestock (sheep) carrier. Different type of steward & cabin service !!!!

'''March 20th. 1980.''' Demolition commenced by Chin Shew Hwa Enterprises, Kaohsiung.

Service
Built for the Far East- Eastern Australia trade.

1970. Due to a decline in the original service she was refitted for the Sydney-Fiji cruise ship service.

Events / Stories
First ship I ever sailed in with radar! I think it was a Metropolitan-Vickers. One plus for it was a search facility where the operator could restrict the cursor movement to a small arc. This was in 1955. The other momentous event I recall is that I subsequently married the Purser! -- Ancient Mariner 10:59, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

1961. Main Engine casualty. The "Taiyuan" was to depart Sydney for Hong Kong & Japan & all passengers were aboard and the visitors ashore. Standby rung down by the telegraph to the engine room, the main engine kicked over on air ahead and then astern with the indicator cocks open. Everything O.K., indicator cocks closed and standby answered on the telegraph to the bridge. Engine room then awaiting the first engine movement. It was quite a long standby, well over an hour before the first movement was rung down, which was answered and an attempt to start the engine was made. The engine only made a small movement before coming to an abrupt halt. Investigation revealed that a cylinder was partly full of engine cooling water, and a web had moved relative to a crankshaft pin. It became apparent that when the engine was turned over on air at standby, one of the cylinder lubricator quills had sprung a leak and allowed the cooling water to accumulate in the cylinder, which began to fill with the cooling water during the long wait for the first engine movement. Hence when an attempt was made to start the engine, the top and bottom pistons of the cylinders only moved so far before the water in the cylinder caused the engine to stop turning, putting an unduly high load on the crankshaft. Repairs were carried out by heating the crank web and cooling the crankpin, and jacking the web back to the correct relative position - as per the witness marks. On completion of repairs the vessel proceeded out of Sydney for sea trials when the engine was run from full ahead to full astern to test the efficiency of the repair, which proved to be satisfactory. However it was decided to replace the components, crankshaft and web, at Taikoo Dockyard, Hong Kong, at a convenient time in the near future, in case the shrink fit between the web and pin had "torn" and this could then be a weak point which could cause a major engine failure in the future.

Menu The copy of a menu in the Images/Stories section (below) is typical of the high standard of cuisine aboard the Taiyuan III and all China Navigation Co. passenger vessels.

See "Images" section, ''Sydney Sunday Telegraph of November 15th. 1970. sent me by a friend. The dog ( named Mick ) was travelling to Lautoka, Fiji. where I had moved to work on a 3 year Contract. Alistair Thomson.''