History

The Camito was built by Alexander Stephen & Son Ltd, Glasgow in 1956 for Elder & Fyffes and their Southampton to the West Indies service. Her main trade was general cargo outbound and bananas on the return run. She had three passenger decks with cabins for 96 first class passengers, public rooms and open air deck spaces. Thus her passengers were all first class, very exclusive! Plantation owners, businessmen etc were often seen among her passengers. It was even patronised by HRH Princess Alice, the last of Queen Victoria's grandchildren, who was Chancellor of West Indies University in Kingston at that time!

Her passenger areas were centred between the four large refrigerated cargo holds, two forward and two aft, which could handle 140,000 stems (1,750 tons) of bananas. She was routed on 4-5 week voyages from Southampton or Avonmouth in England to Barbados, Trinidad and up to 5 ports on Jamaica (Kingston, Port Antonio, Montego Bay, Oracabessa and Bowdin) where bananas were loaded through the cool of the night. With her sister, Golfito, the Camito operated a fortnightly service from Southampton to the West Indies. By the early 1970s the Camito was losing her high class clientele to the airlines and was showing her age. The two ships became less and less profitable and in 1973 the Camito was retired from service and sent for scrap in Taiwan.