SS Musa was a refrigerated banana boat of the United Fruit Company.[1] She was built in 1930 and still in service in 1945.[2]
Musa was built by Workman, Clark and Company of Belfast, Northern Ireland and completed in 1930.[1] United Fruit had a sister ship, SS Platano, built in the same year by Cammell Laird of Birkenhead, England.[3]
Musa had turbo-electric transmission built by British Thomson-Houston
Musa was owned by a United Fruit subsidiary, Balboa Shipping Co, Inc, which registered her under the Panamanian flag of convenience.[1] In the Second World War the US War Shipping Administration allocated Musa and Platano to the United States Army Transportation Corps.[4]
On 18 February 1943 the Director of the Naval Transportation Service approved acquiring the two ships as United States Navy auxiliary ships and on 1 March the Auxiliary Vessels Board endorsed the decision.[4] Soon the plan was changed, with an older banana boat, SS Ulua, being substituted for Musa.[4] The Navy's acquisition of Platano was deferred and in May 1944 it was finally canceled.[4]
By 1964 United Fruit had transferred Platano from Balboa Shipping to another subsidiary, Empressa Hondurena de Vapores, which registered her under the Honduran flag of convenience.
