page_title: SS West Elcajon
section_title: Later career
hierarchical_section_title: SS West Elcajon / Service history / Merchant service / Later career
caption_attribution_description: English: Canadian timber on the deck of the Oriental &amp; Oceanic freighter SS Golden Kauri, South Wharf, Melbourne, Australia, 30 September 1937.
context_page_description: SS West Elcajon was a steel-hulled cargo ship built in 1918 for the United States Shipping Board's World War I emergency wartime shipbuilding program.
  Completed just too late to see service in the war, West Elcajon was nevertheless commissioned into the U.S. Navy as USS West Elcajon, participating in one postwar famine relief mission to Eastern Europe before decommissioning in May 1919.
  After decommission, the ship was laid up for several years until resuming service in 1926 as the merchant ship SS West Elcajon, operating between the United States and the Far East. In 1928, she was purchased by the Matson Line, renamed SS Golden Kauri, and employed in the timber trade between the U.S. and Australia. In late 1928, she became embroiled in a violent Australian industrial dispute.
  In 1938, the ship was renamed SS Waipio, and in 1946 she was sold to Panamanian interests and renamed SS Paralos. Paralos was scrapped in Japan in 1954.
context_section_description: Through the 1930s, Golden Kauri appears to have been employed in coastal service around the United States, operating between ports such as Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans and New York. On 15 October 1935, the ship sustained about $50,000 damage after a collision with the Isthmian Line freighter Steel Mariner in the San Pedro, California main channel. In September 1937, Golden Kauri was back in Australia with a "huge cargo" of 4500000 board feet of Canadian timber. 
  In 1938, the Oceanic and Oriental Line was wound up, and Golden Kauri came under the direct control of the parent company, Matson Lines. Shortly afterward, Golden Kauri was renamed SS Waipio. Waipio carried on in the freight and cargo trade through World War II, still home-ported in San Francisco. In 1946, Waipio was sold to Campania Paralos de Vapores, S.A of Panama, and renamed SS Paralos. Paralos was scrapped in Osaka, Japan in 1954.
caption: Canadian timber on the deck of Golden Kauri, Melbourne, Australia, 1937
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