MS West Honaker - Early Career

Early Career

West Honaker was inspected by the United States Navy after completion for possible use as service collier and was assigned the identification number of 4455. Had she been commissioned, she would have been known as USS West Honaker (ID-4455), but the Navy neither took over the ship nor commissioned her.

Destinations and cargo during West Honaker's first six years of service are largely unreported in sources. In 1926, however, she was the first ship in a pilot program to replace steam engines of seven -owned ships with diesel engines. West Honaker's 3,000-horsepower (2,200 kW) engine, reported by The Washington Post as the largest American-made diesel equipment to that time, was built by McIntosh & Seymour and installed at the Fore River Shipyard near Boston. An Associated Press news item reported that the ship's $1,000,000 conversion, which extended the ship's cruising radius from 7,300 nautical miles (13,500 km) to 17,600 nautical miles (32,600 km), would lower her cost of operation by 15% annually. After her sea trials were complete, West Honaker sailed to Savannah, Georgia, where she began carrying cotton from that port to Bremen.

In January 1927, the established the Atlantic Australian Line, an all-diesel New York – Australia service, and assigned West Honaker to the company. The eight ships in the service—operated by the Roosevelt Steamship Company in conjunction with another -line, the American India Line—sailed east from New York via the Suez Canal through the Indian Ocean and on to Australia and back via the same route. On 15 February, West Honaker sailed on her maiden voyage for the new service for Sydney, where she arrived on 5 April.

On 26 August, she began her second voyage to Sydney, but instead of retracing her route on the return, she continued eastward around the world, becoming—according to The New York Times—the first diesel ship to circumnavigate the globe. Upon her return to New York on 2 March 1928, a reception was held at the Tompkinsville, Staten Island, pier where she had docked. The Roosevelt Steamship Company announced plans for West Honaker to continue in around-the-world service, making two voyages per year.