Over the years the profile and size of vessels visiting Ravensbourne have changed from more modest-sized conventional vessels having their machinery and accommodation located amidships, to considerably larger bulk carriers of the all-aft design.
However, on the odd occasion, something entirely different appeared on the scene like the war-built, heavy-lift vessel that gained a new lease on life from a scrapped tanker.
This vessel was the 7836gt Bermuda Trader which berthed on February 23, 1956, and again on June 1, 1957, to discharge phosphate from Nauru, both at Ravensbourne and Dunedin.
The ship was one of 10 "Bel" type heavy-lift ships built for the Ministry of War Transport during the war.
Their design was based on the prewar "Bel" ships built at Newcastle by Armstrong,Whitworth and Company Ltd.
Six of them, two 12-knot motor ships and four 15-knot steam turbine units, were built at Barrow by Vickers-Armstrongs Ltd.
The other four, all 15-knot, turbo-electric ships, were built by the Greenock Dockyard Company Ltd.
All 10 were machinery-aft vessels having three holds, one forward and two aft of the bridge superstructure.
Each hold was fitted with three 132-tonne heavy-lift derricks.
The second of the Greenock-built quartet, launched as Empire Marshal on May 14, 1945, was completed six months later.
It entered service under Furness Withy management and made its maiden voyage to Hong Kong with a cargo of nine small tugs, 10 lighters and a 30m long oil separator.
Without change of name it was sold in 1947 to the Pandelis Shipping Company of London.
In March, 1951, the ship evacuated troops from Korea.
But when lying at Pusan on July 14, 1952, fire broke out in the turbo-electric machinery.
Later that month it was towed to Nagasaki and laid up before being declared a constructive total loss (CTL) in February, 1953.
On December 20, 1954, after its sale to Mollers (UK) Ltd, the ship arrived at Hong Kong to be refitted at the Taikoo Dockyard.
This work involved removing the 8000shp turbo-electric machinery and replacing it with the 8-cylinder, 3600bhp diesel engine taken from the 7403gt Shell tanker Elax that had arrived at Hong Kong on October 19, 1954, for demolition.
Incidentally, this engine had been fitted to the tanker only in 1946.
It had replaced the original 6-cylinder Werkspoor diesel that powered the tanker from the time of its completion in November, 1927.
The re-engined vessel was renamed Bermuda Trader on May 31, 1955, under the ownership of the Trader Line Ltd. The vessel was later employed in the export log trade and in the summer of 1963 loaded what was then the largest cargo of logs to leave Tauranga.
But, on a later voyage to Japan from Timaru with logs, disaster struck again, on March 3, 1965, when the ship went aground at the entrance to Sakata in a snowstorm.
Five days later, it broke in two amidships and was declared a CTL.
Both parts were broken up in Japan after the refloating of one section in October, 1965, and the other in September, 1966.
The only other member of this type to call here was the first of the Greenock quartet, delivered as the 7832gt Empire Byng in May, 1945.
It later joined the Ben Line fleet as Benwyvis in 1955.
The ship berthed at Dunedin on March 19, 1960, and again on March 25, 1962, to load wool for Dunkirk on charter voyages for New Zealand's Scales Line.
