Reefer ship

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MV Salica Frigo


History of reefers[edit]


Ship refrigeration timeline[edit]



The clipper sailing ship Dunedin, owned by the New Zealand and Australian Land Company (NZALC), was refitted in 1881 with a Bell-Coleman compression refrigeration machine—this steam powered freezer unit worked by compressing air, then releasing it into the hold of the ship. The expanding air got cooler as it expanded cooling the cargo in the hold. Using 3 tons of coal a day, this steam powered machine could chill the hold to 40 °F (22.2 °C) below surrounding air temperature, freezing the cargo in the temperate climate of southern New Zealand, and then maintaining it below freezing (32 °F (0 °C)) through the tropics. The Dunedin's most visible sign of being an unusual ship was the funnel for the refrigeration plant placed between her fore and main masts, (sometimes leading her to be mistaken for a steamship which had been common since the 1840s). In February 1882, the sailing ship Dunedin sailed from Port Chalmers New Zealand with 4331 mutton, 598 lamb and 22 pig carcasses, 246 kegs of butter, as well as hare, pheasant, turkey, chicken and 2226 sheep tongues and arrived in London UK after 98 days sailing with its cargo still frozen. After meeting all costs, The NZALC company made a £4700 profit from the voyage.

Soon after the Dunedin '​s successful voyage, an extensive frozen meat trade from New Zealand and Australia to the UK was developed with over 16 different refrigerated and passenger refrigerated ships built or refitted by 1900 in Scotland and Northern England shipyards for this trade.[1] Within 5 years, 172 shipments of frozen meat were sent from New Zealand to the United Kingdom. Refrigerated shipping also led to a broader meat and dairy boom in Australia New Zealand and Argentina. Frozen meat and Dairy exports continued to form the backbone of New Zealand's economy until the UK's entry into the European Economic Community in 1974 led to New Zealand produce being excluded by the EEC's trade bans. Today (2012) New Zealand has no refrigerated cargo ships.

Loading Clan McDougall with frozen meat for England. Archives New Zealand

The Nelson brothers, butchers in County Meath, Ireland, started shipping extensive live beef shipments to Liverpool, England. They successfully expanded their beef business until their imports from Ireland were insufficient to supply their rapidly growing business and Nelson decided to investigate the possibility of importing meat from Argentina. The first refrigerated ship they bought was the Spindrift which they renamed in 1890 the SS Highland Scot. A vessel of 3,060 gross tons bought by James Nelson and Sons in 1889 and fitted with somewhat primitive refrigerating plant operating on the cold air system, became one of the pioneer vessels in the refrigerated meat and other perishable commodities trade. They hauled beef carcasses from Argentina to Britain their regularly scheduled shipments and ships developed into the Nelson Line that was formed in 1880 for the meat trade from Argentina to UK. All of their ships had a Highland first name. Refrigeration made it possible to import meat from the United States, New Zealand, Argentina and Australia, etc.. The Nelson Line began passenger service in 1910 between London, England and Buenos Aires and in 1913 came under control of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company. In 1932 Royal Mail Group collapsed, Royal Mail Lines Ltd was founded and Nelson Line merged into the new company and disappeared as a separate company

  • In 1879, Henry Bell (1848–1931) and John Bell (1850–1929) of Scotland and Joseph James Coleman (1838–1888) of England completed the Bell-Coleman dense-air machine on the Anchor liner Circassia, which successfully brought a cargo of chilled beef from the US to London.
  • By 1899, refrigerated fruit ship traffic to the US reached 90,000 tons/ year.
  • In 1901, the first refrigerated banana ship, the Port Morant, was equipped with a CO2 machine and carried 23,000 stems of bananas at controlled temperature from Jamaica to the UK.
  • By 1902, the United Fruit Company started having refrigerated "banana" boats built in the UK to add to their fleet which hauled passengers and bananas between ports in the United States and Central America.
  • By 1910, UK refrigerated meat imports rose to 760,000 tons/year.
  • By 1913, UK fleet included 230 refrigerated ships with total cargo capacity of 440,000 ton.

United Fruit Company reefer ships[edit]

The United Fruit Company has used some type of reefers often combined with Cruise ship passenger accommodations, since about 1889. Because of their cargo was mostly bananas they have been nicknamed the "Banana Fleet". Since bananas are relatively light and the normal shipping route was to Central America and then back to various U.S. ports these ships were often built as combination cargo ships and what are now called Cruise ships to pay for more of their operating expenses. After about 1910, they called their combination cruise ships and refrigerated cargo ships the "Great White Fleet". To avoid US shipping regulations and taxes they are registered in about six other countries with very few now maintaining US registry. European associates with their own ships were often employed to ship fruit to Europe. United Brands was taken over by Chiquita Brands International, Cincinnati in the 1980s and owns the largest fleet of banana boats in the world, but none of them now sails under the US flag.[2] SS Pastores and the SS Calamares were built in Ireland in 1912 and 1913 for the United Fruit Company as a combination Cruise ship and refrigerated cargo ship. The United Fruit Company's fleet of about 85 ships was one of the largest civilian fleets in the world. These ships normally carried up to 95 cruise ship passengers and a crew to ports in Central America and then would return to the United States with passengers and a cargo of refrigerated bananas and miscellaneous cargo. They were part of United Fruit's "Great White Fleet"—to minimize heat build-up the ships were all painted white.


Reefers in U.S. Navy service[edit]

World War I[edit]

In World War I, the US Navy contracted for 18 Refrigerated ships for hauling provisions to the troops in Europe. They were launched 1918 and 1919 as the war was ending and were nearly all scrapped by 1933 in the Great Depression as an economy move. Most were built in Baltimore Dry Dock in Baltimore, Maryland, Moore SB in Oakland, California and Standard SB Co. in Shooter's Island N.Y.[4]

World War II[edit]

USS Mizar, formerly the United Fruit Co's SS Quirigua



In addition, the US Maritime Commisison ordered 41 new refrigerated ships for the Navy. Because of the difficulty of building refrigerated ships only two were delivered in 1944. 26 were delivered in 1945 and the remainder in 1946–48.[4]

Types of reefers[edit]

Reefer ships may be categorised into three types:[5]

  3. Refrigerated container ships are specifically designed to carry containerised unit loads where each container has its individual refrigerated unit. These containers are nearly always twenty-foot equivalent units (often called TEU) that are the "standard" container cargo size that are loaded and unloaded at container terminals and aboard container ships. These ships differ from conventional container ships in their design and power generation and electrical distribution equipment. They need provisions made for powering each container's cooling system. Because of their ease of loading and unloading cargo many container ships are now being built or redesigned to carry refrigerated containers.

A major use of refrigerated cargo hold type ships was for the transportation of bananas and frozen meat but most of these ships have been partly replaced by refrigerated containers that have a refrigeration systems attached to the rear end of the container. While on a ship these containers are plugged into an electrical outlet (typically 440 VAC) that ties into the ship's power generation. Since many merchant vessels now have diesel-electric propulsion units installed providing power to individual units is mostly a wiring job. Refrigerated container ships are not limited by the number of refrigeration containers they can carry unlike other container ships which may be limited in their number of refrigeration outlets or have insufficient generator capacity. Each reefer container unit is typically designed with a stand-alone electrical circuit and has its own breaker switch that allows it to be connected and disconnected as required. In principle each individual unit could be repaired while the ship was still underway.



There are also refrigeration systems that have two compressors for very precise and low-temperature operation, such as transporting a container full of blood to a war zone. Cargoes of shrimp, asparagus, caviar and blood are considered among the most expensive refrigerated items. Bananas, fruit and meat have historically been the main cargo of refrigerated ships.

Worldwide service[edit]

According to the CIA's The World Factbook,[6] there were about 38,000 registered merchant ships in the world in 2010, of which about 920 were designed as refrigerated cargo ships. Because of the proliferation of self-contained refrigerated container systems on container ships, there are many more ships than those designed for only refrigerated cargo that are also carrying some refrigerated cargo. The countries with the largest numbers of reefer ships in their registries are the world's two most prominent flags of convenience: Panama with 212 and Liberia with 109 (both as of 2010).

See also[edit]




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