Pride comes before a fall! Having just boasted at my prowess at ship identification with the SEEFALKE, when I scanned these rather grainy negatives by Albert Weller of a Strick vessel in Tees Bay I was sure, from the length of her name, and what I could make out of the name, that it was the SHARARISTAN and captioned the views accordingly. When I got round to preparing this post well, of course, I then found that was not the correct rendering of that name which was actually SHAHRISTAN .... one letter short of the eleven I could count on the photos.
Reference to Dave's Tynebuilt ships soon proved it definitely was not her but rather one or other of the sister-ships BALUCHISTAN and KARAGHISTAN. I think I favour the second, but cannot be sure! So the history for both of them!!
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It is then I find they are not identical sisters, having different tonnages and dimensions, even though they look so alike I still cannot tell them apart from Dave's site or Harry's co-authored Strick WSS history! (I hope someone else can?)
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BALUCHISTAN (5035359), Strick Line Ltd, 8370gt,
completed Readhead, South Shields, 5-1956
1956 BALUCHISTAN - 1975 STRATHAIRLIE
BU Kaohsiung 26.8.77 [Tien Cheng Steel Manufacturing Co]
*****
KARAGHISTAN (5181873), Strick Line Ltd, 7440gt,
completed Readhead, South Shields, 11-1957
1957 KARAGHISTAN - 1973 CONSTANTINOS - 1977 ADMIRAL C
wrecked 36.53.12N/21.40.30E 13.9.78 [Antwerp-Jeddah, general]
***** That little boat must have been going round and round!!
Ron