Ship History
The ship was built by the Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Company of Chester, Pennsylvania for the U.S. Maritime Commission (contract No. 1770) as a Type T2-SE-A1 tanker, hull number 437. She was laid down on 10 January 1944, launched on 2 May, and delivered on 23 May.
In May 1947, she was sold to the Gulf Oil Corporation and renamed Gulfmills. In May 1961, she was purchased by Marine Transport Lines (MTL), and renamed Marine Electric. The ship was modified by the addition of a new midsection for cargo transport, built at the Bremer Vulkan yard in Bremen, Germany, which was then towed to the Bethlehem Steel Co. yard in East Boston. This extended the ship's length overall from 523 feet (159 m) to 605 feet (184 m), and her tonnage from 10,448 to 13,757 gross register tons (GRT). The work was completed in November 1962. However, the Marine Electric was showing its age, exhibiting corrosion and damage to the hull and other structural components.
Read more about this topic: SS Marine Electric
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“We want some coat woven of elastic steel, stout as the first, and limber as the second. We want a ship in these billows we inhabit. An angular, dogmatic house would be rent to chips and splinters, in this storm of many elements. No, it must be tight, and fit to the form of man, to live at all; as a shell is the architecture of a house founded on the sea.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.”
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