MV Otaki (1952)
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The MV Otaki was a cargo ship built for the New Zealand Shipping Company by John Brown's of Clydebank in 1953.[1] She was launched on 24 October 1952 and registered at London.
Description
She was 526 feet (160 m) long, 70 feet (21 m) broad, and her draught was 30 feet (9.1 m). Her tonnage was 10,934 GT. Her main engines were two twelve-cylinder 11,500bhp Sulzers geared to a single shaft to enable her to use the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal. She sailed at 16 knots and carried 2680 tons of heavy fuel oil.
Victoria Cross
She proudly wore the Victoria Cross in her smoke room from first Otaki. In 1908 the second Otaki was built by William Denny and Brothers, Dumbarton, on the Clyde.[2] During the first world war she was intercepted and sunk in the Atlantic on 10 March 1917 by the Moewe. Her fight was gallent enough for her captain, Archibald Bisset Smith to be awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross, which was passed on to each succeeding ship called Otaki.
Career
In 1967 she was owned by Federal S N Co Ltd, London, then in 1973 P&O S N Co Ltd, London.
In 1975 she was sold to the Roussos brothers World Sea Shipping Company Limited of Limassol and sailed under the Cyprus flag as the Mahmout. But whilst refitting for her new owners at Perama Greece, she caught fire and was laid up as a constructive total loss. She was sold on and renamed the Natalia in 1979. her only move was in tow to Izmir, Turkey, where after she arrived on 25 February 1984 she was scrapped by Ticaret Ve Gemi Bozmacilar.