page_title: RMS Andes (1939)
section_title: Liner service
hierarchical_section_title: RMS Andes (1939) / Ocean liner 1948–59 / Liner service
caption_attribution_description: Prince Chula of Siam with his English fiancee
context_page_description: RMS Andes was a 26,689 GRT steam turbine Royal Mail Ship, ocean liner, cruise ship, and the flagship of the Royal Mail Lines fleet. She was the second Royal Mail ship to be named after the South American Andes mountain range. The first RMS Andes was an A-class liner launched in 1913
  . In 1929 that RMS Andes was converted into a cruise ship and renamed Atlantis.
  The second Andes was built in Belfast in 1937–39 and completed at the outbreak of the Second World War. The Admiralty almost immediately requisitioned her as a troop ship and had her converted to carry about 4,000 troops. In troop service she broke three speed records for long-distance voyages.
  Andes was converted back into a civilian liner in 1947. She entered civilian service in 1948 on RMSP's premier liner route between Southampton, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. For seven years she worked the route full-time, but from 1955 the frequency of her liner voyages decreased and she spent an increasing proportion of her time cruising. In 1959–60 she was converted at Flushing, Netherlands into a full-time cruise ship. She was scrapped at Ghent in 1971.
context_section_description: On 22 January 1948, eight years and four months after her cancelled civilian maiden voyage, Andes sailed from Southampton on her first commercial run to South America. RML had innovated by selling 100 First Class berths to round trip passengers, who for a £10 supplement could remain aboard Andes in Buenos Aires, using her as an hotel.
  Since the beginning of December 1947 the UK ambassador to Argentina Sir Reginald Leeper and British Trade Mission led by chairman Clive Baillieu had been trying to negotiate a new trade agreement with President Juan Perón and his National Economic Council chairman Miguel Miranda. Nine weeks of discussions seemed on the brink of failure.
  Then Andes reached Buenos Aires, and on 7 February hosted a reception for President Perón. At the reception the Argentinian and UK delegations unexpectedly reached agreement, and both sides accepted Leeper's proposal that it be named the "Andes Agreement". Her holds were duly loaded with 1,900 tons of beef and 140 tons of canned meat, shipped under the newly agreed trade terms.
  In the South Atlantic on her second South American voyage Andes responded to distress calls from a 8,268 GRT Norwegian oil tanker, Fenja, which had suffered a fire in her engine room. A party from Andes boarded Fenja to assist, and another ship later towed the tanker to Montevideo in Uruguay.
  In liner service in 1948 Andes consistently achieved the 21 knot cruising speed that RML had required of Harland and Wolff in her specification in 1937. At about this time the Canadian Army presented her with a bronze plaque commemorating her part in Convoy TC 2 in December 1939, which had brought the first Canadian troops to the UK in the Second World War.
  The older Asturias and Alcantara, like Andes, had spent the war in Government service. Alcantara was released in August 1947, refitted for commercial civilian service and in October 1948 joined Andes on RML's South American route. But Asturias had been badly damaged by a torpedo in 1943, her repairs were not completed until after the war, and she then became property of the Ministry of Transport. At the time many people wanted to emigrate from war-damaged Britain to a new life in the British Dominions, so the MoT had Asturias refitted to carry emigrants to Australia. RML managed and crewed Asturias under contract, but she never returned to the route for which she was built. Thus Lord Essendon's 1932 plan to have three liners on RML's prestige South American route was never fulfilled.
  Andes was dry-docked annually. In June 1952 this included renewing her propellers, overhauling her rudder and preparatory work for the future fitting of a pair of Denny-Brown stabilisers. That autumn Andes suffered a defect in one of her intermediate pressure turbines. Thereafter RML reduced her cruising speed from 21 to 18 knots (33 km/h) for the rest of her career.
  On 15 June 1953 the Royal Navy commemorated the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II with a fleet review at Spithead. Two days before the review Andes embarked 404 passengers in Southampton to spectate. She spent the night at anchor in Portland Bay, where her passengers danced on deck under the stars. At the review her passengers saw not only the Royal Navy fleet but also ships from foreign navies, including the heavy cruiser USS Baltimore,
  Soviet Navy Sverdlov-class cruiser Sverdlov and Swedish Navy cruiser HSwMS Göta Lejon.
  Later in 1953 Andes was fitted with the pair of stabilisers for which preparatory work had been made the previous year. Each stabiliser was 78 sq ft (7.2 m²) in size and was retracted or extended hydraulically. They could be controlled from either the bridge or the engine room.
  In June 1955 Andes made her first cruise. It was a relatively short trip of 4,600 miles to and from the Mediterranean. Thereafter her liner voyages to and from South America were often separated by cruises to either the Mediterranean or the Caribbean.
  Several times Prince Chula Chakrabongse of Siam sailed on Andes between Europe and South America. In 1955 the Earl and Countess Alexander of Tunis sailed on her 
caption: In the 1950s Prince Chula Chakrabongse (seen here in the 1930s with his fiancée Elizabeth Hunter) travelled on Andes several times
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