Hi David,
Yes I have indeed seen your Martand photo and commented on it a while ago. The incident occurred shortly after I had been visiting onboard her at Colombo. One of the lads on board her had been with us on the Manaar on our previous voyage. I'll upload my photo shortly.
Thanks for the added info and yes, I still recall them as being East and West Pakistan and Ceylon.

Cheers,
Dave (to avoid confusion for others)

Hi, David.

As you'll remember, when she was built in 1960 Pakistan was still in 2 parts, and on delivery she took over the Karachi-Chittagong run from British India's Aronda, presumably calling at Colombo en route. When East Pakistan split off she was actually in Chittagong but was able to escape. After that I'm guessing she must have been on the Gulf run.
It's possible she was named after Shams-i Tabr?z? (a.k.a. Shams al-Din Mohammad), a famous Persian poet.

Looking forward to seeing your photo of her!

As a Brocklebank man, you might be interested in my (poor quality - couldn't afford a good camera on my cadet's pay!) photo of the Martand aground in the Hooghly in 1964: https://www.shipspotting.com/photos/3042779.

Cheers,
(another) David

I was genuinely delighted to see this photo. I was at Colombo in both 1963 and 1964 on Brocklebank’s Manaar. The lengthy waiting at anchor and discharging extended our time there into months. While there, the Shams was a frequent sight, as she seemed to be providing a regular service, presumably between there and Karachi.
I never saw her alongside as she always seemed to tie up at buoys in the centre of the harbour. She was always referred to as ‘The shams boat’ and it never occurred to me that it was her name. I never got close enough to see it and assumed ‘shams’ was some reference to her company’s identity.

I do have a photo of her taken in 1964 when she looked less worn. I’ll dig it out and post that too. I always thought she looked oddly cluttered with all her lifeboats .
Thanks very much for posting.