A LENS ON VANCOUVER'S PAST

S.S. ARKELDYK [at Ballantyne Pier]

July 31, 1962

CVA 447-3308
 

The more modern design of Victory ships like the ARKELDYK (the former WHITMAN VICTORY) with its slightly larger size and more powerful steam turbine engines ensured that they could travel in in high-speed convoys, making them more difficult targets for German submarines. As with Liberty ships, U.S. shipyards also produced large numbers of Victory ships with a total of 531 ships built between 1944 and 1946.

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Still steaming seventeen years after the Second World War, ARKELDYK brought Heineken beer, tulip bulbs and Gouda cheese from Europe. Less typical cargo included the trawler ‘GERONIMO’ (Los Angeles-Vancouver) which had the (unsuccessful) goal of capturing a baby orca whale for the Marineland oceanarium in California.