Blue Funnel Line
The locomotive engineer`s odyssey
Alfred Holt`s Blue Funnel Line established itself a superb
reputation as the best-run cargo liner company. For many observers,
that meant the best shipping company of all. It built technically
superb ships, had them expertly crewed, and gave noble service in
peace and war. However, its last years were far from glorious. Alfred Holt was apprenticed as a railway locomotive engineer,
although his family were Liverpool merchants and shipowners.
Realising that locomotive engineering was well in advance of marine
engineering, Holt applied some of its principles to powering ships.
Using compounding and high boiler pressure, he achieved an enormous
increase in efficiency. Because of the reduction in fuel
consumption, his ships were the first that could steam from the UK
to the Far East and carry not just coal for their engines, but also
a profitable cargo. The company Holt founded, the Ocean Steam Ship Company, became
popularly known as Blue Funnel Line. Because he was setting out on
a great adventure, Holt gave his ships names from the greatest
adventure story he had read, Homer`s Odyssey:
Agamemnon, Ajax and Achilles. These legendary Greek names, plus
tall and distinguished blue funnels, became marks of excellence in
shipping. Blue Funnel built ships to a higher class than required
by even the most demanding classification society [definition]. Indeed, so confident was the company
that its ships were well built and manned that it did not insure
all of them - its policy only paid out if they lost two ships in
any one year.
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