MS Transpet

Career
Name:	MS Avoca
Builder:	St. Johns River Shipbuilding Jacksonville, Florida
Yard number:	88
Acquired:	by U.S. Navy under loan charter, 1945
Renamed:	Petaluma (AOG-69), 1945
Launched:	5 May 1945
Notes:	U.S. Navy acquisition canceled, 27 August 1945 while 85% complete
Completed:	at Maryland Drydock Company Baltimore, Maryland
Renamed:	MS Transpet, 1947
Owner:	1947: National Petroleum Transport Corporation
Operator:	–1951: D. K. Ludwig
Port of registry:	–1951: Panama
Fate:	sank on 30 October 1951
General characteristics
Type:	Type T1-M-BT1 tanker
Tonnage:	2,948 GRT
Length:	311 ft 3 in (94.87 m)
Beam:	48 ft 3 in (14.71 m)
Draft:	22 ft 8 in (6.91 m)
Propulsion:	1 diesel engine
Speed:	10 knots (19 km/h)

MS Transpet was a tanker of United States and Panamanian registry.

Construction

She was ordered by the United States Maritime Commission as MS Avoca however, while still under construction at St. Johns River Shipbuilding, Jacksonville, she was reassigned to the United States Navy under a loan charter and renamed Petaluma (AOG-69)

Petaluma was launched on 5 May 1945, and was about 85% complete when, due to the end of World War II, the ship's U.S. Navy reassignment was canceled on 26 August 1945. Although initially restored to her original name of Avoca by her original owners, the unfinished ship was completed by the Maryland Drydock Company in Baltimore, Maryland, in October 1947 and sold to the National Petroleum Transport Corporation where she was renamed Transpet.

Career

From 1947 until 1951, Transpet flew the U.S. flag. In 1951 Transpet was registered under the Panamanian flag and placed under the operation of D.K. Ludwig of New York for the British American Oil Company.

On 29 October 1951 the tanker departed Montreal for Halifax loaded with 1,500,000 imperial gallons (6,800,000 l) of gasoline and kerosene. The following day, the ship suffered an explosion in the engine room while in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Two seamen were killed in the blast; the other eighteen members of the crew abandoned the sinking ship and were rescued by the British ship Ottinge and landed at North Sydney, Nova Scotia.

In May 1954, the Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Company announced that its "sea scanar" device had located the wreck of Transpet at a depth of 120 feet (37 m) about 13 nautical miles (24 km) off Miscou Island. It was the first time the "sea scanar", which had been in use as a fish finder off the West Coast of the United States, had been used in a salvage operation and the first wreck located using it.