Chinese owned sip ex BANTAM (RRL)

[graham_t]

In the late 1960s, early 1970 the People's Republic of China sometimes purchased ships for breaking, but then renamed them and traded them locally. These vessels seem to have been restricted to Chinese waters and this coupled with the fact that China was extremely secretive at the time and banned photography in their ports meant that these ship renamings were never officially reported. A few photos were taken and sometimes an identifiable ship could be seen, sometimes with a new name visible, sometimes not.

This is one example where much is still to be discovered.

https://www.shipspotting.com/photos/3221938

Another example that has come to light is in the attached photo of the port of Dalian taken during or after 1971 (the build date, 1971, of the tanker in the foreground DA QING 30 dictates this).

The vessel of interest is the freighter in the top right of the bigger photo. It is fairly easy to identify her as the ex 1939 built BANTAM of Royal Rotterdam Lloyd which was reported arriving at Shanghai in July 1971 for breaking as the MILLSTAR.

She is seen here sailing from Rotterdam on the outward voyage to Shanghai here.

https://www.shipspotting.com/photos/3165319

In the Dalian photo we can see that her funnel is now plain black and her masts and derricks white or pale buff. A Chinese character has been painted on her bow; this is too indistinct to read properly but the shape suggests that she might be one of the GANG series (from Stephen Kentwell).

What we now want to know is what is the exact name she was given and what was her final fate.