MV Dunedin Star

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Career (Great Britain)

Namesake:	Dunedin
Operator:	Blue Star Line
Builder:	Cammell Laird, Birkenhead
Launched:	29 October 1935
Christened:	MV Dunedin Star
Commissioned:	February 1936
Fate:	Grounded, 29 November 1942, Skeleton Coast
General characteristics
Class and type:	Refrigerated Cargo Liner
Displacement:	13000^[1]
Length:	530 feet (162 m)
Beam:	70.4 feet (21 m)
Draught:	32.3 feet (10 m)
Propulsion:	Two 9-Cylinder 2 S.C.S.A. oil engines by Sulzer Bros, Winterthur, driving twin screws

MV Dunedin Star I was a Blue Star Line ship that ran aground on the Skeleton Coast of Namibia on November 29, 1942, while carrying passengers and cargo from Liverpool to Saldanha Bay, South Africa, Aden and Egypt. She was carrying munitions and supplies as part of the Allies World War II effort, but had 21 fare-paying passengers escaping The Blitz as well.^[1]

1 Shipwreck
2 References
3 Further reading
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Shipwreck

Dunedin Star was a 530 feet (160 m) long refrigerated cargo liner built by the Cammell Laird company of Birkenhead, England, and was launched in 1935. Three days short of arriving in Saldanha Bay, she struck an underwater obstacle, presumed by the court of inquiry to be the poorly charted Clan Alpine Shoal. The crew managed to send an SOS distress call, giving their approximate position as18°08′S 11°33′E / -18.13, 11.55Coordinates: 18°08′S 11°33′E / -18.13, 11.55, that was intercepted onshore at Walvis Bay.

The ship began taking on water rapidly, and its pumps were unable to cope. In an effort to preserve the lives of the passengers and the valuable cargo, Captain Lee elected to ground the ship on the beach, 80 km south of the Cunene River mouth. The ship grounded 500 metres (1,600 ft) offshore, forcing the evacuation in heavy seas via its motorboat. Forty-two passengers and crew were evacuated before the motorboat failed after three trips, leaving 43 souls onboard the stranded ship.^[2] The captain contacted Walvis Bay again, requesting further assistance.

A rescue tug, the Sir Charles Elliott, dispatched after the SOS was received, ran on to rocks before reaching the stranded ship. Two of her crew members lost their lives while trying to swim ashore.^{[citation needed]}

Three days later, four ships arrived on the scene, and rescued the remaining 43 people on the ship; however none of the rescue ships was able to reach the shore due to adverse sea conditions. An aircraft was therefore summoned to supply food and water to the castaways.

A Ventura bomber dropped supplies on the beach, then later, in an attempt to rescue women and children, landed on a nearby salt pan. However the landing gear broke through the crusted surface of the salt, damaging the aircraft. After performing onsite repairs, the aircraft finally took off again, only to crash into the sea immediately afterwards. The crew not only survived the crash, but managed to swim ashore and later find their way to the overland rescue convoy as well. The airmen, together with the original survivors, eventually reached Windhoek on Christmas Eve, twenty-six days after the original disaster.

Her grounding became famous because of the perilous conditions facing the survivors after they landed on the desolate Namibian shore. The coastline is completely inhospitable, being guarded on one side by the fierce surf and on the other by the almost completely barren Namib Desert that runs almost the entire length of the coast and varies in width from 50–160 km.

Some of the cargo was salvaged in 1951^[3], while some is still visible to this day on the beach.