Draft:Grace Shipping Company

From W. R. Grace and Company, Shipping: Grace shipping was a key part of W. R. Grace for most of the corporation's history. Grace's main business was cargo shipping, operating the Grace Line:

The New York & Pacific Steamships, where built outside the United States. These ships sailed under the British flag because foreign built ships before 1905 were banned from the US registry.
 * Grace Line began service in 1882, with ports of call between Peru and New York. The main source of shipping revenue was the from the exporting of guano from the Chincha Islands of Peru to fertilizer manufacturers in the United States.
 * Regular steamship service was established in 1893, with a subsidiary called the New York & Pacific Steamship Co..

US-flag service began in 1912 with the Atlantic and Pacific Steamship Company. In 1913, the company acquired the SS Santa Cruz for service from the West Coast of the U.S. to the Pacific coast of South America. The ship had been acquired from William Cramp & Sons of Philadelphia.

The activities of both companies and the parent firm were consolidated into the Grace Steamship Company beginning in 1916. The firm originally specialized in traffic to the west coast of South America; then later expanded into the Caribbean. In 1916, Grace acquired a controlling interest in the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. In 1921, Pacific received five 535 ft. President class ships from the United States Shipping Board for Transpacific operations. These ships were the


 * President Cleveland (ex Golden State)
 * President Lincoln (ex Hoosier State)
 * President Pierce (ex Hawkeye State)
 * President Taft (ex Buckeye State)
 * President Wilson (ex Empire State)

In 1923, the US Shipping board decided to place the five ships up for bid and Dollar Shipping Company won the bid. With no large ships for the transpacific operations, Grace sold the Pacific Mail, its registered name, and goodwill to Dollar. Now without a transpacific service, Grace did not need the six intercoastal freighters and sold them to the American Hawaiian Line. At this time, Grace formed the Panama Mail Steamship Company, to operate the smaller ships that were formerly owned and used by the Pacific Mail in the Central American trade. These ships were not involved in the sale to Dollar.

On the death of William R. Grace in 1904, he was succeeded by William L. Sauders as company president followed by Joseph Peter Grace, Sr. (1872–1950) who became president in 1907.

Two of the first ships in the fleet were the SS Santa Paula and SS Santa Rosa.

Passenger Service (West Coast of South America-United States)
The Grace Lines started with five ships for service from New York City to as far as Chile. There ships were the SS Santa Ana, Santa Luisa, Santa Elina, Santa Teresa, and Santa Leonora.

1930s
In order to comply with existing U.S. Mail contracts, the Grace Line acquired four Santa Rosa class ships from the Federal Shipbuilding Company of Kearney, New Jersey. The ships were designed by William Francis Gibbs of the naval architecture company Gibbs & Cox. The four ships were the SS Santa Paula, Santa Elena, Santa Rosa, and Santa Lucia.

The 1932 Santa Paula was a replacement for the 1916 Santa Paula. The 1932 ships would be put into service in World War ll under the command of the U.S. War Shipping Administration (WSA). Only two ships would survive, the Santa Paula and the Santa Rosa.

In 1934, Grace Line and the Panama Pacific Line announced a collaborative service for fast passenger service between New York and West Coast of the U.S., by means of the Panama Canal. The first ship to launch service from the Grace Line was the Santa Lucia.

In 1936, Grace Line would acquire the Red D Line (the Atlantic and Caribbean Steam Navigation Company).

In 1938 the Colombian Line merged with Grace Line bringing an end to the Colombian Line. During World War II, Grace Lines operated transport for the U.S. War Shipping Administration, including the SS Sea Marlin.

1940s-1950s
J. Peter Grace took over management of the company after his father suffered a stroke in 1945. After the war, the Grace line operated 23 ships totaling 188,000 gross tons, and an additional 14 more on bareboat charters.

In 1958, Gibbs & Cox designed the replacements for the Santa Rosa and Santa Paula, the new Santa Rosa (1958) and Santa Paula (1958). The ships had the following features:


 * Aluminum Paneling for Fire Protection
 * Each Room had it own Bathroom

1960s
In 1960, the Grace Line, inspired by the pioneering efforts of Sea-Land Service, Matson Navigation, and Seatrain Lines, sought to begin containerizing its South American cargo operations by converting the conventional freighters Santa Eliana and Santa Leonor into fully cellular container ships. However, the effort was stymied by the opposition of longshoremen in New York and Venezuela, and the ships were repeatedly laid up idle and were ultimately sold to the domestic container line Sea-Land Service in 1964. In 1963, Grace made a second attempt to containerize its South American trade when it ordered the four M-class combination passenger-cargo ships Santa Magdalena, Santa Maria, Santa Mariana, and Santa Mercedes with partial cellular holds, but they were no more successful as mixing conventional break-bulk cargo and containers in the same ship negated the operating economies that full containerization promised.

1970s
In 1970, Grace Line was sold to Prudential Lines for $44.5 million, with the merged company renamed Prudential Grace Line. It was taken over by Delta Steamship Lines in 1978, thereby extinguishing the name Grace in ocean shipping. Subsequently, Delta Steamship Lines was acquired and consolidated by Crowley Maritime in 1982.

Entrance of Parent Company into the Airline Industry
With the experience of Grace Shipping in South America, the parent company of Grace was able to enter into a joint venture with Pan American Airways for the creation of Panagra (Pan American-Grace Airways) in South America. The financial stability and experience of the two companies in South America appeared to be a key reason for the Postmaster General to allow US mail service to be handled by this air cargo service.