Overseas Containers Limited

Overseas Containers Limited (OCL) was a container shipping company formed by a consortium of British shipping companies in 1965. Not to be confused with Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL).

History

In the early days of containerisation considerable investment was still required in the necessary infrastructure to transport and handle shipping containers, and many shipping companies formed consortia to ease the financial burden. OCL was formed by four British companies; Alfred Holt and Company (The Blue Funnel Line), Furness Withy, British and Commonwealth Shipping, and P&O. Between 1969 and 1970 OCL took delivery of its first ships, a fleet of six vessels of GRT|27,000|first=yes and TEU|1,900|first=yes capacity for the UK/Europe to Australia route. The service was inaugurated on the 6th March 1969 by "ss Encounter Bay" undertaking her maiden voyage, and OCL overcame heavy losses in the first years of operations to become one of the world's leading container lines. One company, P&O, gradually increased its share of the consortium until in 1986 it bought the remaining 53% held by Ocean Transport and Trading (successors to Alfred Holt) and British & Commonwealth. On the 1st January 1987 the name OCL ceased to exist, the operation becoming known as P&O Containers Ltd (P&OCL). In 1996 P&O Containers merged with Nedlloyd to form P&O Nedlloyd. August 2005 saw the completion of a buyout of P&O Nedlloyd by the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group and in February 2006 the name Maersk Line was adopted for the combined fleets.

The Ships

Container ships sailing for the company under the OCL banner were characterised by their green hulls with white topping, white superstructure and green funnels bearing the initials OCL in white letters. All OCL ships' names ended in "Bay", such as "Encounter Bay", "Tokyo Bay", "Liverpool Bay", "Resolution Bay" and "Mairangi Bay". Subsidiary operations such as the Australia- Japan Container Line did not follow this trend, instead having names such as "Arafura" and "Aotea". When OCL became P&OCL, there was a slight modification to the ships' colour scheme, the hulls becoming completely green and the OCL logo on the funnels being replaced with the P&O logo. The naming convention was retained, and in June 2006 there were still a couple of "Bay" ships in the Maersk Line fleet.

External links

* [http://www.maerskline.com/link/?page=brochure&path=/our_services/vessels Maersk Line Fleet List] website

References

* "The Story of P&O", David Howarth and Stephen Howarth, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986