The Fleets

Moore & McCormack Company, New York (1913-1982)

Moore & McCormack Company was formed the in 1913 by Albert V. Moore of Hackensack, N.J. and Emmet J. McCormack of Brooklyn, N.Y.
In 1913 the service was started with the chartered ship MONTARA built in 1881. In 1914 two Great Lakes ships were purchased, the wooden hulled engines aft GETTYSBURG of 1887 which was renamed BARNSTABLE and the steel built JESSE E. SPAULDING which was renamed MOOREMACK.
Before World War I, the United States depended on foreign ships to transport most of its international commerce. The new Mooremack service was a bold challenge to this pattern. By 1917 passenger service was added. In the 15 sailings that year, new Brazilian ports were visited. Two years later the NANTAHALA introduced the Mooremack house flag as far south as Buenos Aires. In 1916 the Company was known as Moore & McCormack Co. Inc.

With the chartering of the ss SAGA from Svenska Lloyd, the Company gained control of its first passenger vessel, later followed by more chartered Swedish ships, ANGLIA, GRAECIA, FAGER, MALM and CALABRIA. BeforeWorld War 1 was over, there were 15 sailings annually to South America.
With victory, the U.S. Government was determined to establish an adequate merchant marine and American companies were offered the operation of some of the 2,311 war-built merchant ships.
Services were established to the Levant and India, to Ireland and Egypt, to the Balkans and North Africa. The Company also played a major role in Herbert Hoover‘s food relief program through the handling of food shipments to Baltic countries and Russia and the first American flag service was established to Russian ports for the Government owned American Scantic Line.
In 1927 Moore & McCormack purchased the American Scantic Line with six Hog Island built ships from the United States Shipping Board.
The Company also developed the Mooremack Gulf Line in 1928 to move melons, oranges and other perishables from Gulf ports to waiting northern markets, the ships employed in this trade were mainly ships built at the Great Lakes with the prefix COMMERCIAL. Simultaneously, sailings continued to South America.
On March 14, 1932, the Company launched an extensive fleet modernization program involving the conversation of four Hog Island vessels into modern passenger ships for the American Scantic Line.

The Merchant Marine Act of 1936 provided for a well-balanced American Merchant Marine to foster and develop the commerce of the United States. The first new cargo vessel constructed under this act came to Moore McCormack Lines as MORMACPORT (ex- SEA FOX) followed by the MORMACYORK. In December 1938 a contract was placed for another four motor ships and another two steamships were ordered in January 1939, with a repeat pair in October 1939, these ships were all of the standard C3 design.
In September of 1938, the Company officially became Moore McCormack Lines, Incorporated.

In 1938 a by the Maritime’s Commission subsidised service the American Republics Line from New York to the East Coast of South America was started with three ex Panama Pacific Line passenger vessels the ARGENTINA (ex PENNSYLVANIA), BRAZIL (ex- VIRGINIA) and URUGUAY (ex- CALIFORNIA) and inaugurated the famous Good Neighbor Fleet, also a number of cargo ships were purchased for this service, the ships were owned by the US Government and managed by Moore McCormack with the Moore McCormack funnel and houseflag.
In 1939 more ships of the standard C3 design were ordered.

Through a purchase agreement with the United States Maritime Commission in 1940, Moore-McCormack Lines acquired the Pacific Republics Line service. The Company launched the operation with seven ships.
Ships in this service cover ports on the Pacific Coast of the United States and Canada from Vancouver to Los Angeles. In transiting the Panama Canal, they call at Panama and the Canal Zone, then serve Northern Columbia and Venezuela before paralleling the route of the American Republics Line to Barbados, Trinidad, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. The ships usually return via the Straits of Magellan with a stop en route at Callao, Peru.
The Pacific Republics Line Service had been in operation only a short period when it was interrupted by World War II. The first of eleven Mooremack ships lost through enemy action was the COLLAMER, a Pacific Republics cargo liner.
Re-established after the War, this service was stepped up in 1957 when Mooremack acquired the Pacific Argentine Brazil Line of Pope & Talbot Inc. and its four modern cargo ships, this service was established in 1940 and had been running parallel with the Pacific Republics Line, the four ships taken over were of the C3-S-A2 type.

The entire Mooremack fleet was placed at the disposal of the nation‘s defence establishment immediately after Pearl Harbor.
During the war, the Company was assigned responsibility for the operation of 707 different vessels, 2,199 different voyages and the movement of over 20,400,000 tons of vital war cargo to every theatre of the war. Ships in the Company‘s pre-war fleet became baby flat-tops, destroyer and submarine tenders, cargo attack ships, troop transports and performed many other war services. Moore McCormack lost altogether eleven ships during the conflict.

After World War II Moore McCormack acquired six C2-S-B1 standard ships in 1947 for the South American run, followed by a number of C3-S-A2 standard ships and later seven more C3-S-A5 type’s were completed between May 1946 and January 1947 for Moore McCormack, three for the Baltic Trade and the remainder for the South American run.
Four Victory type standard ships were also purchased in 1947, later in 1951 another Victory was purchased and one T2-SE-A1 tanker (PEQUOT HILL) which was renamed MORMACFUEL and stayed in the fleet till 1965.

Moore McCormack Lines established a four-continent American-flag shipping service in 1957 when Robin Line of the Seas Shipping Co. Inc. was acquired by the Company, of the twelve ships eight were taken over by Moore McCormack, the other four went to Jakob Isbrantsen of New York. The ships kept their ROBIN names.
Founded in 1935, the Robin Line offered cargo service from Atlantic ports of the United States to South and East Africa. Ports served range from Cape Frio on the Atlantic around the Cape of Good Hope to Mogadishu on the Indian Ocean. These ships also serve the Malagasy Republic, Zanzibar and other Indian Ocean islands.

In 1958 the luxurious new passenger ships, ARGENTINA and BRASIL, with speeds of 23 knots or better, replaced the older and slower liners in the popular passenger route to Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Montevideo and Buenos Aires. At the same time Mooremack embarked on an extensive fleet replacement program of new modern cargo ships.

Moore McCormack began a vessel replacement program in 1956. Fourteen new ships comprised the first wave which was completed in 1965. The freighters were essentially bigger and faster versions of existing ones.
The ARGENTINA and BRAZIL were not a big success due to coming of the jet passenger plane and were laid up in 1969.
The company realized that containers were the future, but the realization was not easily acted upon because Moore McCormack did not want to get burned with containers, as happened to the Grace Line in Venezuela in 1960. The majority of the company‘s business was in South America and Africa areas that, because of their rudimentary transportation and port systems, placed containers at least 10 and probably 20 years into the future. Thus Moore McCormack needed a highly versatile vessel that could readily adapt to general cargo, containers, and Roll on/Roll off vehicles (Ro/Ro), without forgetting special defence measures particularly important in the Vietnam War period. The unique design Moore McCormack created provided for false decks and the closing or opening of special hatches so that the vessel could increase its capacity of either container or Roll on/Roll off vehicles. The ships were quite well suited to the African and South American trades, but when Moore McCormack launched the first regular container route to Europe in February 1966 (two months before Malcolm McLean's Sea-Land) the higher cargo-handling expenses in European ports ate away almost all of the profits.

When the North Atlantic rate war erupted early in 1970, Moore McCormack had nothing to fall back on. The combination freighter-container-Ro/Ro vessels were simply no match for the European lines, which, running bigger and faster full containerships with fat profit margins, could afford to ride out a long rate war. In a few months it was all over for Moore McCormack the company abandoned the North Atlantic service, and even after selling the four vessels to American Export Lines, it still suffered a $17 million loss in 1970.
The company was on the verge of collapse, but in 1972 the sale of its two passenger liners, ARGENTINA and BRASIL for cruise purposes to Holland America Line brought a much needed cash infusion that allowed the company to revive.
Since February 1971, the company had been under the leadership of a new president, James R. Barker, who had learned well the lesson of other steamship companies that corporate survival depended upon diversification away from the highly risky and volatile shipping business. Diversification began in 1964, but Barker made it his primary goal. He sold 20 overage vessels from the fleet, and kept only the most modern and efficient ships running on the South American and African services and the Company became Moore McCormack Resources. Three tankers in July 1973 were ordered for operation in the domestic routes and were chartered to carry Alaska oil.
In 1973 the Moore-McCormack Bulk Transport Inc. was established to operate their tanker interests and this continued to operate until early 1987 when it was sold to the ex chairman of the company, James R. Barker, who set up Mormac Marine Group Inc., and was renamed Mormac Marine Transport Inc. Moore & McCormack Resources Inc. continued as a ship operator, albeit of one vessel only, until going bankrupt in 1998.

The no less solid Africa route was ignored until the opportunity appeared to consolidate the service with the other U.S. flag line sailing to Africa in 1980, with the purchase of Farrell‘s two 15-year old U.S. flag freighters (AUSTRAL PILOT and AUSTRAL PATRIOT) previously on that route and Moore McCormack became the sole U.S. flag service from New York to South and East Africa.
In 1980, 4 of its fleet of 13 ships serving South America and Africa were lengthened to handle a larger number of containers, but the company remembering how badly it had been burned with containers in the 1970 North Atlantic rate war, was still sceptical, so as Latin America finally entered the container age, Moore McCormack was a reluctant participant.
The losses of the parent company began to pile up from 1981, and Barker desperately sought to sell off assets while buyers could still be found. Malcolm McLean of the United States Lines purchased the fleet and routes of Moore McCormack in December 1982 and merged it into its own operations and being renamed United States Lines (S.A.) Inc.

The United States Lines did not long survive Moore McCormack, in 1986 they went bankrupt and filed for protection from its creditors and its surviving ships were sold or scrapped.

Many thanks to Henk Jungerius and Ted Finch for his assistance in collecting this data. The following list was extracted from various sources. This is not an all inclusive list but should only be used as a guide. If you would like to know more about a vessel, visit the Ship Descriptions (onsite) or Immigrant Ship web site.

• Routes:
  • US East Coast ports to East Coast ports South America (ARL)
  • US East Coast ports to Scandinavian ports, Baltic ports and Northern Europe (ASL)
  • US East Coast ports to Panama and US West Coast ports (PRL)
  • US East Coast ports to Gulf of Mexico ports (MGL)
  • US East Coast ports to South African ports (ARL)

Abbreviations:   ARL:    American Republics Line   ASL:     American Scantic Line   PRL:     Pacific Republics Line   MM:     Moore & McCormack   Marad:  Maritime Administration   NDRF:  National Defence Reserve Fleet   MGL:    Mooremack Gulf Line   RFF:      Ready Reserve Force Funnels & Flags:
Fleet:				Mooremacks Gulf (of Mexico) Line

TheShipsList | Return to The Fleets

TheShipsList®™ - (Swiggum) All Rights Reserved - Copyright © 1997-present
These pages may be freely linked to but not duplicated in any fashion without written consent of .
Last updated: May 11, 2008 and maintained by and M. Kohli