Grace Shipping Company

Grace Shipping was a key part of the parent company, W. R. Grace, for a large part of the corporation's history. The Grace Line began service in 1882, with regular steamship service beginning in 1893. In 1929, the success of Grace Shipping was instrumental for its parent company to enter a joint venture with Pan American World Airways in order to create Pan American-Grace Airways.
In December of 1969, Grace Line was sold to Prudential Lines for $44.5 million, with the merged company renamed Prudential Grace Line.

19th century

The Grace Line began service in 1882, with ports of call between Peru and New York City. The main source of shipping revenue was 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. The first ship to test the route was SS Mount Tabor. Steamships utilized the shorter route of the Strait of Magellan, whereas a sailing ship needed to go past Cape Horn.

Beginning of the 20th century

The New York & Pacific Steamships, were built outside the United States. These ships sailed under the British flag because foreign built ships before 1914 were banned from the US registry based upon a federal law that had been enacted in 1789. However, US-flag service began in 1912 with the Atlantic and Pacific Steamship Company. In 1913, the company acquired 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 the shipbuilder William Cramp & Sons of Philadelphia.
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
SS Santa Luisa
SS Santa Elina
SS Santa Teresa
SS Santa Leonora

Due in part to the enactment by the United States Congress of the Panama Canal Act of 1912 which prohibited railroad companies from owning ships passing through the Panama Canal, Grace Shipping was able to acquire a controlling interest in the Pacific Mail Steamship Company in 1916. Also in 1916, two new ships were acquired in and. Santa Paula would later enter service with the United States Navy and gain the prefix USS Santa Paula in World War I. The names Santa Paula and Santa Rosa would later become the names of several ships in the history of the Grace Line.

1920s

In 1921, Pacific Mail Steamship Company received five President-class ships from the United States Shipping Board for transpacific operations.
These ships were the:

President Cleveland
President Lincoln
President Pierce
President Taft
President Wilson

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 its goodwill to Dollar in 1926. Now without a transpacific service, Grace did not need the six inter coastal freighters and sold them to the American Hawaiian Line. Santa Paula was renamed Montanan.

Entrance of parent company into the airline industry

With the experience of Grace Shipping in South America, the parent company of W.R. Grace and Company was, in 1928, able to enter into a joint venture with Pan American Airways for the creation of Panagra 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.

1930s and 1940s

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, Santa Elena,, and. As of 1932, the new Santa Rosa was the most economical steamer at sea in terms of specific fuel consumption.
The 1932 Santa Paula was a replacement for the 1916 Santa Paula. 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 acquired the Red D Line. 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. Only two ships of the line's fleet would survive,Santa Paula and Santa Rosa.
The ships were:

Name	Year constructed	Year entering service	Type
Santa Barbara	1943	1943	C2 cargo ship
Santa Cecilia	1942	1943	C2 cargo ship
Santa Cruz	1941	1943	C1B vessel
Santa Isabel	1939	1939	C2 freight
Santa Rosa	1932	1942	Passenger and cargo ship
Santa Clara	1930	1941	Turbo-electric ocean liner
Santa Elena	1933	1942	Passenger and cargo ship
Santa Paula	1932	1942	Passenger and cargo ship
Santa Monica	1932	1943	C2 cargo ship
Santa Maria	1942	1943	C2 cargo ship
Santa Lucia	1933	1942	Amphibious assault ship

1940s–1950s

After World War II, the Grace line operated 23 ships totaling, and an additional 14 more on bareboat charters. However, immediately after the end of the war, private ships were under requisition of the U.S. Government. In collaboration with the United States Maritime Commission, the Grace Line built a new fleet of vessels for post-war shipping services. On November 4, 1945, the president of the Grace Line, R. Ranney Adams, announced the post-war shipping services:

Our new combination passenger and cargo liners will be fast and efficient vessels with accommodations for 52 first-class passengers. Each stateroom will have a private bath. All cabins and public spaces will be air conditioned, first applications of the Latin-American trades.

The 1958 versions of ''Santa Rosa'' and ''Santa Paula''

In 1956, Gibbs & Cox was again the designer and had designed the replacements for Santa Rosa and Santa Paula, the new and. Newport News Shipping Company built the ships. The ships had the following features:

Aluminum paneling for fire protection.
Gyrofin stabilizers were fitted to improve stability.
Each room had its own bathroom.
Extended automatic conveyors for palletized cargo in the holds.

The ships were designed for twelve-day voyages, with ports of call in Aruba, The Bahamas, Curaçao, Jamaica, and Venezuela.
The key textile designer for the interiors was Dorothy Liebes, who had previously worked with Gibbs & Cox and interior designers Smyth, Urquhart & Marckwald on the. A profile in Handweaver & Craftsman magazine explained the interior design of the ships for these types of routes as follows:

Handwoven fabrics, along with the work of contemporary artists, sculptors, ceramists, and craftsmen in metal, enamel and glass help to create a fresh, cool, relaxing modern atmosphere, a new-ship look in keeping with holiday travel in tropical waters.

Santa Paula was launched on January 9, 1958 by Patricia Nixon, the wife of then Vice President Richard Nixon.

1960s

In 1960, the Grace Line sought to begin containerizing its South American cargo operations by converting the conventional freighters and Santa Leonor into fully cellular container ships. However, the effort was opposed to by the longshoremen in New York and Venezuela, and the ships were repeatedly laid up idle. The ships were ultimately sold to the domestic container line Sea-Land Service in 1964. Sea-Land immediately modified the two ships to carry its 35-foot containers. Santa Eliana was temporarily renamed Sea and Santa Leonor became Land. The ships were employed on the U.S. coastal and Puerto Rican trades.

The L and M ships

L ships

The Grace Line replaced the aging freighters and added six newly built freighters called the L ships.

M ships

In 1963, Grace made a second attempt to containerize its South American trade when it ordered what was referred to as the M ships, which were:

Santa Magdalena
Santa Maria
Santa M'ariana
Santa Mercedes

The ships were combination passenger-cargo ships with partial cellular holds. Each ship could carry 125 first class passengers. However, they were no real gain as mixing conventional breakbulk cargo and containers in the same ship was less efficient in terms of the operating economies than full containerization was capable of. Santa Magdalena, the first of the class, was delivered to Grace Line on February 4, 1965.

M ship design

The ships were designed by George G. Sharpe Company, naval architects and engineers. As an engineering company, operations analysis of the trade route was made to determine:

The characteristics of the cargo moving on the route.
Establish the feasibility of mechanical handling of cargo in units.

This operations analysis included:

A detailed study of the cargo commodities transported on the route.
Analyses of weight, dimensions, net cubic volume, gross cubic volume, port of origin, and port of destination.
A classification of the cargo concerning its susceptibility to unitization.

In conjunction with trade forecasts prepared by Grace economists, trends in cargo carryings were managed by means of:

Having trends analyzed
Having trends projected into the future.