Ships of the East Asiatic Line on Postcards Contact me at a suitably modified form of rhare at talk21 dot com. Last Modified: 1 July 2003

Introduction

These pages are not, and in no way claim or purport to be `official' pages of the East Asiatic Company. They are my own private collection of information relating to EAC ships. Originally, the intention was that this should be a `postcards' page reflecting my interest in shipping postcards, and in this particular comany (because I found out quite by accident that they ran the worlds first commercial ocean-going diesel ships).

However, he material has by now been fleshed out with photographs and other material from several interested persons, including those who have worked for EAC, Burmeister & Wain, etc. In some cases, these people are the children and grandchildren of those originally connected with EAC! I am grateful to them al,l for their permission to reproduce these documents and to paraphrase their information.

Every attempt has been made to ensure that information is accurate - please inform me of you see any errors. I have also attempted to ensure that I have permission from copyright holders where this is applicable - please contact me if you feel that your copyright has been infringed.

In some instances, conflicting (as opposed to erroneous) information has been recieved. In such cases, I have given preference to information contained in the publications of the builders (usually B&W76 or NAKSKOV85), or to that given in the articles in Sea Breezes (KERSHAW64A, KERSHAW64B). Different tonnages, etc. are usually due to the effects of re-measurement and/or re-fit - I have generally not given these, to avoid confusion and have preferred B&W76 or NAKSKOV85 where there is a conflict.

When date of acquisition and date of build are not the same, date of acquisition is given after the name, and date of build is usually given in the text.

This version of the pages, kindly hosted for me by the Mariners List is a snapshot of the page at 1 July 2003. Because of my retirement, this may well be the 'finished' version of the pages. However, if you have information about EAC, please contact me at the email address above. I may be able to update the pages at some future date, so I still need information and pictures (postcards preferred) for many ships, though I suspect that in some cases these do not exist. In some cases, I only have the name of the vessel and nothing else! If you have any information regarding any aspect of the ships and shipping activities of EAC, including information about builders, routes, port offices and docks, etc. please contact me. In particular, if you have postcards of any of the ships, docks, yards, offices, etc. please contact me.

A larger image can be viewed by clicking on any of the small images of the cards.

The East Asiatic Company - A Short History

East Asiatic Company (Ostasiatiske Kompagni, Aktieselskabet Det.), Copenhagen, Denmark. Formed 1897 by Capt. H. N. Andersen and associates. Operated between Denmark and the Far East, trading in rice, oilseed, timber and spices. Operated first commercial ocean-going diesel ship (Selandia (1912)) after which routes expanded to include South Africa, the West Indies, North America and Australia. Survived WWII with a depleted fleet but retained their rank amongst the worlds leading ship operators. Largely divested itself of shipping interests between 1994 and 1997 and diversified into other areas.
[CHAMBERS, KERSHAW64A, KERSHAW64B]

The Russian American Line and Baltic American Line were subsidiaries of EAC and are dealt with here.

Ships of the East Asiatic Line

Funnel: Yellow. Some have no funnels but an exhaust pipe attached to the mast.
Hull: Black with white line and red boot-topping except Falstria, Jutlandia, Lalandia, Meonia and Selandia which have white hulls with blue line and green boot-topping.
Some time during the 1960s, the E|A|C logo was added to the funnels.

All illustrations are of postally unused EAC postcards in my collection, unless otherwise stated. Where illustrations are marked (A N Other collection), I do not have a card, but the image has been donated by the named collector.

In some instances, there seem to have been more than one ship of the same name, or conflicting information about the same ship. Confusions caused by this will be sorted out as I have the time and as I uncover information.

Sources, References and Acknowledgements

Electronic:

East Asiatic Company

Summary information about EAC ships on The Ships List.

Some Other Ocean Liner and Shipping Links:
More ocean liner cards in my collection
Finnish Steamship Company cards in my collection.

In order to keep the body of the text as `clean' as possible, I have not inserted references `on the fly', rather at the end of each entry, except where references are to WWW pages, where I have supplied links in the usual way. Apart from the paper references, much of the above information is a paraphrase and precis of information received personally from others interested enough, and kind enough to send their information and/or images to me. Here they are - thanks to: Alain de Bressy (France), Jess Lyke Christensen (Denmark), Michel Forand (Canada), Bert van Galen (Netherlands), Frederic Gros (France), Ole Stig Johannesen (Denmark), Joorgen Kamstrup (Denmark), Peter Kirketerp-Moeller (Denmark), Ron Mapplebeck (U.K.), George Robinson (U.K.), John Stevenson (U.K.), Sue Trewartha (Australia), Poul Tingleff (Denmark), Mette Tofte (Denmark), Keith Wicks (U.K.), for the information they have supplied.

Items credited to A Duncan are copyright photographs (not postcards) and I gratefully acknowledge Mr Duncan's permission to use scans of these copyright items.

Items credited to Poul Tingleff are photographs (not postcards) from Mr Tingleff's personal collection, or from newsletters with which he has been associated. I gratefully acknowledge Mr Tingleffs's permission to use these items, some of which are copyright to the original newsletter.

These pages have been accessed by readers in: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Chile, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, U.S.A.