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Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij (KPM)

MUSI

The KPM was founded in Amsterdam in 1888 to take over the government contract for steamship lines in what was then the Netherlands Indies from 1 January 1891. It held that monopoly until the surrender to Japan in March 1942. Under the terms of Dutch recognition of Indonesia’s sovereignty in December 1949, it retained interisland shipping rights until the assets in Indonesia were seized in December 1957. The older interisland ships were sold to breakers, newer ones to Singaporean owners, and the most suitable kept for regional trading in Asia and as far as the Indian Ocean. On 1 January 1967 the residual KPM fleet was merged into KJCPL/RIL, though the little coaster MUSI (1950) continued trading between Singapore and East Timor in KPM colours until 1976. All the ships are well documented and illustrated at marhisdata.nl. The following articles go into more detail on the alpha and omega of the interisland fleet, first the original fleet and the subsequent long lives of some of these ships in North China and Japan, then the post-WWII ‘Baud’ passenger class and ‘Wai’ cattle class. The photo above is of the last ship in service in KPM colours, being MUSI (1950) at Singapore in March 1976 (Bruce Nicol/Nautical Association of Australia).

The KPM’s Original Thirteen and the Long Afterlives in China and Japan of VAN DIEMEN, SPEELMAN and SWAERDECROON in the PDF file tells of the original 13 ships of the Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij (KPM) which in January 1891 took over the mail contract for the Netherlands East Indies, now Indonesia. This study discusses the ships' origin, design, careers and the vessels they operated with.  We have particularly focussed on the careers in China and Japan of three of the ships which lived past the age of 50 years. The photo below from the collection of Martin Lindenborn shows SPEELMAN arriving at a river port in the Netherlands East Indies in 1890.

SPEELMAN

The 'Wai' class quartette of 1948-49 were an unusual but very practical hybrid design built for the cattle trade from eastern Indonesia (Nusa Tenggara) to Java and Singapore. After the KPM's expulsion from Indonesia, they plied as far away as the Persian Gulf and East Africa before being sold in 1965 to P.N. Djakarta Lloyd for the cattle trade to Hong Kong, though later they were also used in the Indonesia-Australia line. The photo below of WAINGAPOE (1949) in Djakarta Lloyd colours was taken by John Mathieson (NAA) from the Sydney Harbour Bridge on 23 June 1970.

WAINGAPOE

TEXT & FLEET  (PDF FORMAT)

# Pending

STRAAT SOENDA

Kon. Java-China Paketvaart Lijnen, better known as Royal Interocean Lines (RIL), took effect from 1 July 1947 as a merger of the deepsea lines and fleets of the KPM and the Java-China-Japan Line (JCJL). Head management office was in Hong Kong. These ships are also well documented and illustrated at marhisdata.nl. The following article tells the story of RIL’s only newly built and commissioned passenger lines TJILUWAH and TJIWANGI (both 1951), designed for the Indonesia-Straits-China trade but after ten years redeployed between Australia and Japan, then in the 1970s sold to Pacific International Lines of Singapore. RIL’s MAETSUYCKER (1947-60), KEERKRING (1967-67), CAMPHUYS (1967-69) and VAN RIEBEECK (1967-69) appear under the KPM heading (VAN RIEMSDIJK & BAUD-CLASS). The photos are of RIL’s STRAAT SOENDA (1939), above at Hobart on 22 June 1959 (Reg Wilson/NAA) and the small freighter SINABANG (1949) outbound at Hobart, early 1960s (Noel Brown/Rex Cox).

SINABANG

TEXT & FLEET  (PDF FORMAT)

# Pending

Indonesian-flag shipping lines (Interisland)

KOMERING

State-owned PELNI was established in 1952 and quickly assembled a substantial fleet, but private owner-operators also emerged. From 1957 Coastal Shipping (Pelayaran Pantai) and from 1964 Interisland Shipping (Pelayaran Nusantara) were a specific licence category that through the 1970s comprised around 50 companies. In the 1970s and 1980s the author documented all these as background for his PhD thesis, subsequently published as The Indonesian Interisland Shipping Industry (ISEAS, Singapore, 1987). For want of public interest, this material has remained filed away in handwritten and typescript form. As an historic record of the first forty years of Indonesian-flag shipping and of many companies that no longer exist, it deserves to be placed in the public domain. Information was collated from official sources, Indonesian National Shipowners Association (INSA) documentation, interviews with company owners and managers, newspapers and magazines, and the author’s inspection and photography of the ships themselves. There is a lot of material so collation, editing and posting will be a gradual process as time allows. The photo by the author is Sriwijaya Raya Lines’ KOMERING (originally KPM’s KAIMANA of 1948) at Donggala in April 1974. His account of that voyage is listed second below.

TEXT & FLEET  (PDF FORMAT)

# Pending

Indonesian-flag shipping lines (Deepsea)

GUNUNG TAMBORA

Indonesian-flag shipping only became viable in 1950 after the Dutch had lifted their naval blockade. State-owned Djakarta Lloyd was the only significant deepsea operator until the late 1960s, when privately owned Ampera (later Admiral) Lines, Gesuri Lloyd, Karana Line, ad Trikora Lloyd began to build secondhand liner fleets. These lists will be posted in due course. The photo  above by John Mathieson/Nautical Assocn shows Djakarta Lloyd’s GUNUNG TAMBORA departing Sydney,  2 December 1972 , one of three ‘Gunung’ sisters built in Japan in 1961 for the Indonesia-Japan trade but latterly used between Indonesia and Australia.

TEXT & FLEET  (PDF FORMAT)

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