Collection of 21 documents relating to Overseas Containers Limited
Date1960s-1980s
Object numberANMS1120
NameArchive series
Copyright© OCL
ClassificationsEphemera
Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from David Baker
DescriptionThis collection of 21 items of Overseas Containers Limited (OCL) memorabilia and archival material provides a record of the company's history from inception in the 1960s to being subsumed in 1987. The series consists of one list of Australian Shipping Agency Arrangements; one list of vessels and shipping lines; three reports on prices and cargo; seven memorandums; three tables listing freight comparisons and cargo weights; one copy of an AESC Telex from London; one set of correspondence to and from The Australia Japan Container Line; one statement; one set of articles on international shipping; one summary of unit load vessels and one conference note. The documents span the period 1960s-1980s.HistoryContainerisation had a significant impact on Australian and international shipping, and shipping related industries and workforces. In the 1960s many shipping companies formed consortia to ease the financial burden of the changeover from cargo handling to containers.
OCL was formed in 1969 by four British companies: British and Commonwealth Shipping, Furness Withy, P&O and the Ocean Steamship Company. Between 1969 and 1970 OCL took delivery of its first ships, a fleet of six vessels of 27,000 gross register tons (GRT) and 1,900 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) capacity for the UK-Europe to Australia route. The service was inaugurated on the 6th March 1969 by ENCOUNTER BAY undertaking her maiden voyage, and OCL overcame heavy losses in the first years of operations to become one of the world's leading container lines. By 1982 OCL was Europe's largest container through transport operator with a fleet of 20 containerships and more than 60,000 container units. It served more than 50 major ports and, in 1980, transported more than a quarter of a million container loads of import and export cargo on a route network linking locations throughout four continents.
One company, P&O, gradually increased its share of the consortium until in 1986 it bought the remaining 53% held by Ocean Transport and Trading (as The Ocean Steamship Company was by then known) and British & Commonwealth. On the 1st January 1987 the name OCL ceased to exist, the operation becoming known as P&O Containers Ltd (P&OCL). In 1996 P&O Containers merged with Nedlloyd to form P&O Nedlloyd. August 2005 saw the completion of a buyout of P&O Nedlloyd by the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group and in February 2006 the name Maersk Line was adopted for the combined fleets.
Container ships sailing for the company under the OCL banner were characterised by their green hulls with white topping, white superstructure and green funnels bearing the initials OCL in white letters. All OCL ships' names ended in Bay, such as ENCOUNTER BAY, TOKYO BAY, LIVERPOOL BAY, RESOLUTION BAY and MAIRANGI BAY.
When OCL became P&OCL, there was a slight modification to the ships' colour scheme, the hulls becoming completely green and the OCL logo on the funnels being replaced with the P&O logo. The naming convention was retained, and in June 2006 there were some 'Bay' ships operating in the Maersk Line fleet.