By the end of the World War II, American shipyards had built a total of 2,710 vessels that were collectively known as the Liberty ships. A further ship was damaged on the stocks and not completed. The Liberties had been based on a pre-war tramp ship design from J.L. Thompson of North Sands on the River Wear, the only significant changes being that the Americans used welding as the main construction method, utilising pre-fabricated sections to speed up the building process, and the vessels were fuelled by oil rather than coal.
American shipbuilding had for some time favoured steam turbines as a method of propulsion, but for the Liberties, they reverted to a simple triple expansion steam engine, again of prewar vintage and designed by North Eastern Marine Engineering Co. of Newcastle upon Tyne. The vessels were designed to have an expected life span of five years.
At the end of the war, many of these vessels were mothballed in the reserve fleet, but a large number were sold to the world’s tramp ship operators, who were mainly Greek. By thewere, perhaps surprisingly, still tramping the world’s oceans, but were becoming increasingly unreliable and, with 20-year surveys on the horizon, the owners began looking for suitable replacements.
