Guan Guan's 1954 Wm.Pickersgill, Sunderland, built GOLDEN BRIDGE berthed at Avonmouth on 24th June 1973 discharging a cargo of oilseed from Karachi. Scanned from a slide in my collection by the late John Wiltshire of Cardiff.

GOLDEN BRIDGE, initially registered in Hong Kong, was owned by the Thio family, operators of Guan Guan, King Line and a host of Panamanian subsidiaries. Between 1972 and 1976, she was officially owned by Thio Keng Leng and registered in Somalia, a flag of convenience which was preferred to Panama for trading with the People's Republic of China, the Panama flag being preferred for trading out of Singapore to Indonesia.

Thio/GG were close to China from the mid-1950s, initially shipping rubber - their staple business - then moving into the South China-Straits passenger trade. Their participation in trade with China grew over time until the People's Republic of China operated their own flag of convenience ships (Sin Chiao, etc.) and Guan Guan faded away. With thanks to Prof. Howard Dick of Melbourne for providing this background information.

History: EX-LONDON BREEZE-70 EX-ROOKLEY-63 EX-WELSH TRADER-61

Later:1977: sold to Vietnam and renamed SONG THU BON

She finally arrived at Kaohsiung on 3rd June 1980 for scrapping under the abbreviated name of SONG