Karaganda (Russian: Караганда) was a merchant steam ship of the Black Sea Shipping Company (Soviet Union) from 9 March 1950 to 1967. Columbia River Shipbuilding, Portland OR This ship was built in the US in 1919, named Circinus and used in some shipping companies of the United States and from 1942 in Soviet shipping companies.
She was a West-class ship as per American shipyards position and Belorussia-class cargo ships as per Russian classification due to one of the West-class cargo ships being named Belorussia when she was purchased by the Soviet Union.
Ship's particulars. Design 1013 ship. Low free board.
Cargo gear: derricks equipped with steam motors. Cargo holds: 4 cargo holds and tweendecks.
US history of this ship This ship was built in 1919 in United States.
SS Circinus (1919–1930). During and just after World War I, the Shipping Board's sales campaigns urged Americans to buy ships for wealth and patriotism. Other ethnic groups set up shipping lines by appealing to group solidarity. So, Irish businessmen created the "Green Star Line".
18 January 1920. The Sunday Oregonian (Portland) wrote on page 46: GREEN STAR WILL PLY ATLANTIC Four Steamers Purchased Here to Sail From Baltimore. ORIENTAL RUN PROMISED Cruft Now Being Built at Standifer Plant Expected to Be Operated on Pacific.
Speculation as to the future field of operations of the Green Star Steamship company, which purchased four steel steamers in Portland and placed orders for the construction of five more, was ended last week by a formal announcement from the headquarters of the company in Baltimore, where the Green Star line has purchased a large building to serve as a home for its shipping enterprises. The last of the steamers purchased by, the line here, the Circlnus, sailed from Astoria Wednesday with a full cargo of lumber for Melbourne and Adelaide, Australia. This cargo amounted to 4.086,103 feet, it is reported by Brown & McCabe, stevedores, who had charge of loading the vessel. The Sunday "OREGOXIAX, PORTLAND," JANUARY 18, 1920. >> GREEN STAR WILL PLYS ATLANTIC Historic Oregon Newspaper >> The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881–current, January 18, 1920, SECTION TWO, Image 46.
20 December 1919. The Morning Oregonian in Portland, Oregon, wrote: "The new steel steamer Circinus of the "Green Star Line" dropped down to St. Helens yesterday and will start loading there Monday. The Circinus has been chartered by J.J. Moore of San Francisco to carry a full cargo of lumber to Australia. She will load at several Columbia river ports. She experienced no trouble beyond a slight checking of her speed in moving through the loose Ice."Historic Oregon Newspapers. >> Morning Oregonian (Portland, Or.) 1861–1937, December 20, 1919, Image 15, p. 15. >> Image and text provided by University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR.
28 February 1920, Saturday. The Register (Adelaide, SA: 1901 – 1929) wrote in Chapter "Shipping" that the ship Circinus will arrive at Portland, Oregon, on Monday, 2 March 1920."SHIPPING", The Register (Adelaide, SA: 1901 – 1929), Saturday, 28 February 1920; p. 10. 1923 year. In February 1923 five ships of the "Green Star Line" were sold at auction at Baltimore for $735,000, a figure that was considered too low by shipping experts (NYT, 28 February 1923). The "Green Star Line" was not officially reorganized until March 1923. A new corporation the "Planet Star Corp.", brought the remainder of ships owned by the "Green Star Line". In September 1923 an official exchange of securities began, allowing holders of "Green Star Line" stock to trade for stock in the new company (NYT, 8 March and 4 September 1923). 21 September 1927. The Prescott Evening Courier wrote: "Freighter on rocks in So. Pacific. SAN DIEGO, Sept. 21 – (AP) – Believed to have lost its course in a heavy fog that prevailed last night, the freighter Circinus, en route to San Diego, San Pedro and San Francisco from New York, struck the rocks at Descanso Point, Lower California, 16 miles south of here, according to information received here this morning. The Circinus is a 10,000-ton ship of the Isthmian Line and carries a crew of 60 men. According to the information received here, the ship is resting easily and is in no immediate danger.
Captain Oakley J. Hall of the "Star and Crescent Boat Company" sent a company's tug, Palomar, to the aid of the Circinus and at the same time requested the navy department to dispatch the naval tug Koka to the scene"."Freighter on rocks in So. Pacific", Prescott Evening Courier, 21 September 1927.
30 September 1927. The Madera Tribune, Number 126, wrote: "ROCK PREVENTS SHIP'S SINKING. (United Press Dispatch) SAN DIEGO, 30 Sep – A huge bolder which stuck to the hull of the freighter Circinus, when grounded 17 miles south of the border, kept tho ship from sinking, a diver discovered. The freighter was floated Wednesday and brought here. The rock punctured both bottoms of the vessel. It was embedded firmly".California Digital Newspaper Collection. >>The Madera Tribune, Number 126, 30 September 1927. Article. "Calmar Steamship Co." (1927–1976). A subsidiary of "Bethlehem Steel Corp.", serving the intercoastal trade. The company was established by Bethlehem in 1927 to complete with United States Steel's Isthmian Line. Bethlehem had previously operated the "Ore Steamship Corp." as a proprietary operation, but "Calmar" was only "half proprietary", carrying exclusively Bethlehem's steel westbound, but functioning as a common carrier on the return voyage to the East Coast by carrying lumber from a variety of shippers. In addition, "Calmar" collaborated with Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc., in these voyages.
13 December 1929. The Oakland Tribune wrote:
"CALMAR BUYS SHIPS. The "Calmar Line" has purchased five freighters from the "Planet Steamship company", according to announcement from New York. This purchase increases the Calmar intercoastal fleet to 11 ships. The new craft are 880 tons register.
The vessels involved are all well known on this coast, consisting of the Circinius, Corvus, Clauseus, Centaurus and Eurana. They have run into local ports for several years under the Isthmian Line houseflag".
The steamer Circinius was renamed Vermar in 1930.
SS Vermar (1930–1942) December 1938. "The Master, Mate and Pilot", number 8, December 1938, mentioned in the article "Calmar Steamship Corp." buys three 10,000-tons Freighters:
"H. W. Warley, vice president of the "Calmar Steamship Corporation", has announced that the concern has purchased three freighters of 10,000 tons deadweight capacity, bringing its intercoastal fleet to 14 ships. The three vessels, the Ehnsport, Colorado Springs, and Edgehill, will enter service as the Kenmar, Marymar, and Oremar, following the nomenclature system now in effect and honoring the states of Kentucky, Maryland, and Oregon.
The expansion program will make possible a new schedule of weekly sailings between ports on the two coasts, Mr. Warley explained. In future, vessels will sail westbound from Baltimore each Saturday and from Philadelphia on Wednesdays, for Los Angeles, San Francisco, Alameda, Oakland, Richmond, Calif, Portland, Seattle, and Tacoma. It is also planned to reduce the transit time to the northernmost ports. The first sailing for the West Coast will be that of the Vermar, leaving Baltimore 7 January and returning from Puget Sound 16 February.""Calmar Steamship Corp. Buys Three 10,000-Ton Freighters", The Master, Mate and Pilot, number 8, December 1938, p. 12.
1 May 1939. The Eugene Register-Guard wrote: "Portland Hearings Will be Continued this Wednesday. PORTLAND, Ore., May 1. (AP) – Labor hitched up its "justiciable controversies" today and prepared to make a fresh assault on Oregon's new union-control law.
At a preliminary hearing on a constitutional test by a group of unions, three circuit court judges decided no "justiciable controversy" had been shown – the union hadn't proved they were hurt. When the case reaches court again Wednesday, a new suit will be included. A motion picture operator's union ask the right to picked the Circle theater because of contract differences although it constitutes less than a majority of employers and under the law could not picket. Waterfront Mentioned
If that doesn't provide enough force to test the law which was passed last November in the wake of a year-long campaign against labor terrorism, there is the matter of waterfront picketing.
CIO woodworkers from a Carlton lumber mill, on strike because three members of their union were realized, continued to prevent loading of lumber from the mill on the freighter Vermar. Ship agents threatened to invoke the control law on the ground less than half the mill's employees were involved, a stand that ended picketing at the mill last week.
It was indicated the theater suit"."Portland Hearings Will be Continued this Wednesday", Eugene Register-Guard, May 1, 1939.
5 May 1939. The Spokane Daily Chronicle wrote: "Restraining Order Blocks Picketing.
PORTLAND, Ore., May 5. (AP) – A temporary restraining order to stop picketing was issued Wednesday in one of Portsland's two labor controversies that have tied up ships and the order was settled when the union accepted a company offer. The International Woodworkers of America Wednesday accepted an offer from the Engle & Worth Lumber company at Cariton, ending the dispute that prevented the freighter Vermar loading lumber for five days. The firm reinstated two dismissed workers. Circuit Judge John P. Winter issued the order restraining pickets of the maritime office employees' local, 1–25, from picketing the steamer William Luckenbach. The union picketed the boat in protest to the company's asserted failure to company with a national labor relations board order to reinstate three workers"."Restraining Order Blocks Picketing", The Spokane Daily Chronicle, May 5, 1939.
6 May 1939. The Capital Journal (Salem, Oregon) wrote on page 12: "Moody's Report On Good Cases Barred by Court. Portland, May 6 (AP) – Oregon's union-control law faced a new challenge today in a series of waterfront disputes.
While three circuit judges heard defendant officials answer a labor coalition test of the law's constitutionally, another was added when charges against 21 men indicated for alleged unlawful picketing of the steamer Vermar were shifted to the same court. Accused of having prevented loading of the freighter Vermar with lumber from a Carlton sawmill, the men, mostly members of the Carlton CIO woodworkers' union, were realised from custody after a demurrer to the indictments was filed.
Gus Solomon, CIO attorney who filed the demurrer on the ground that the law was unconstitutional, asked transfer of the case to the judges hearing the test. The law forbids demonstrations on premises of employers not involved in controversies and in cases where less than majority of workers are concerned. The woodworkers' strike at the Carlton mill was settled but only after loading of the Vermar was delayed three days.
George Cron, who declared the state courts had no jurisdiction and picketed in defiance of the circuit court order, was charged with contempt but released on bond. However longshoremen and CIO sailors pleaded "danger" and refused to board the vessel. Cron's arrest followed a demonstration be the maritime office workers' union in protesting alleged refusal of the Luckenbach line to heed a national labor relations board order and reinstate three members with back pay.
In the original labor-coalition test of the law, the court acting upon answers filed by defendant city, county and state officials admitted all the evidence with the exception of a report on labor terrorism by special prosecutor Ralph Moody, which is termed a "special pleading by a skilled partisan".""Moody’s Report On Good Cases Barred by Court", The Capital Journal, Salem, Oregon, 6 May 1939, p. 12.