SS Manoa

Manoa in 1928
History
United States
NameManoa
OwnerMatson Navigation Company
Port of registrySan Francisco, later Vladivostok
BuilderNewport News Shipbuilding
LaunchedNovember 1, 1913
CompletedDecember 13, 1913
Maiden voyageMarch 1, 1914[1]
Out of service1969
RenamedBalkhash (1942)[2]
IdentificationUS official number 211832
FateScrapped in Vladivostok, USSR (1975);[2] possibly repair base afterward
General characteristics
Tonnage6,805 GRT (1913)
Length
  • 446.2 ft (136.0 m) overall
  • 422.6 ft (128.8 m) registered
Beam54.0 ft (16.5 m)
Depth33.3 ft (10.1 m)
DecksBridge (officer's quarters), Promenade (10 deluxe passenger cabins), Main (20 passenger cabins)
PropulsionSteam qauadruple expansion, reciprocating steam engine, single screw[3]
Capacity90 passengers

SS Manoa was an American freight and passenger steamship that sailed for the Matson Line from San Francisco to Hawaii.[4] Unusual for her time, her engines and funnel were aft, minimizing vibration felt by the passengers and soot on deck.[5] The aft design was considered ugly by passenger ship purists.[6]

After the Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, she was put into military service and transferred to the Soviet Union under terms of Lend-Lease. They renamed her Balkhash. She was used to transfer Estonian prisoners to the Gulag during World War II and later transferred to the Far East Company. She remained in service through at least 1967, and her hull was used for a while afterward as a service vessel for repairing navigation systems. She was reportedly scrapped in 1975, though she may have been used for many years more.

  1. ^ "The Friend" (1 ed.). Mission Houses Museum. 1 March 1914. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference ellis was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Mariners’ Museum Memories Retrieved 23 April 2014.
  4. ^ Deck plans for S. S. Manoa Retrieved 23 April 2014.
  5. ^ "Stateroom plan S. S. Manoa". Huntington Digital Library. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
  6. ^ Bollinger, Martin J (2003). Stalin's Slave Ships: Kolyma, the Gulag Fleet, and the Role of the West (First ed.). Westport, CN: Praeger. ISBN 978-0275981006.