I rode on the African Neptune in 1968. I was 7 years old. I was with my brother who was 5 and my mom and dad. We were going to Swaziland to be missionaries. Our car and five half crates were in the hold. There were 12 passengers on board. The room you see on the top level was full of tables. We spent most of our trip there. There was a closet full of games and puzzles. My mom constantly worried about my brother getting out on the deck because the railing seemed too easy for a 5-year-old to climb. There were two other missionary ladies traveling in the group. One pretended to adopt me and the other, my brother. They had fun spoiling us. The crew and those missionary ladies told us lots of stories about what it would be like to cross the equator. They said that a little old man would climb up a ladder and bump the ship. We passed over the equator in the night. I asked the next day about when it was going to happen and they told me it already had. I was so disappointed. I remember going out on the deck one evening to watch the sunset with my dad. It was exciting. It took us 10 days to cross the ocean and another 10 to go down the coast and drop off cargo at a variety of stops. I'm currently working on writing a book about my life as a missionary kid. It is titled Finding God in the Black and White of Apartheid. It will be a prequill to the book I already published called Prayer, Faith, and 12 Kids, which is stories of answers to prayer while raising my 12 kids.

Hello sailorhannah
There's a message on another forum from Hugh D Curran, who was at some point Chief Engineer of AFRICAN NEPTUNE.
https://www.shipsnostalgia.com/showthread.php?t=23813&highlight=african+neptune&page=3

Hello! DId anyone happen to sail aboard the African Neptune with a crewmember named Stewart Hindley? He went on to be a chief engineer but I don't know what role he would have served aboard the Neptune--I do know that the voyage he was on carried him to the Congo. I'm his daughter and am looking for stories from this time in his life--would love to hear from someone who sailed with him!

In 1973 this ship struck the draw bridge in my town of Brunswick Ga.knocking down 2 spans with 14 car's & trucks into the channel. About 12 people died that nov.night.

I sailed on the African Neptune as a cadet on her maiden voyage in 1963 and she broke the speed record from NY to Capetown. What a memorable trip up the east coast of Africa and back.

In the late '50s, U.S. Lines operated a fleet of C-4 Mariners. They all had the prefix name of Pioneer followed by a word starting with the letter M. Pioneer Main, Pioneer Minx, Pioneer Muse, etc. I sailed on the Pioneer Muse from NYC to the far east in the winter of '57. Through the canal, up to L.A. then across to Manila, Cebu, Manila, Hong Kong, Keelung, Naha, Yokosuka, Yokohama Nagoya, Osaka, Pusan, Yokohama, Naha, Honolulu, Canal, NYC.

Pioneer Muse was a fine, fast vessel, and one of the earliest with the folding metal hatch covers. Carried lots of military cargo on-deck still left over from the Korean war. They were an outstanding class of vessel.

Interesting comments, vanlieremead.

Units of this class were frequent visitors to Montreal and Great Lakes ports during the 1960s and 1970s when US flag cargo ships from Moore-McCormack, Lykes Lines, American Export Lines, Farrell Lines were trading to the Lakes. All this is history now.

Marc

I sailed on her. We departed NY in the summer of 77, sailed to the Azores, Monrovia, Abidjan, Buchanan, then up the Congo to Matadi and Boma. We drank beer that I swear had quinine it it. Big green bottles. Made friends with other crew members from ships from Holland and the UK. On the way back we picked up cocoa beans from Abidjan - took 3 days, unloaded in 6 hrs in Philly. i still have my Neptunus Rex from when I crossed the equator. Signed by H. H. Harvey and of course Davey Jones. I'll upload it.

Great photo!

Wow! what an image of the past!!
regards
Derek