Dart Containerline

Dart Containerline was a consortium of comprising of Cie Maritime Belge (CMB), Bristol City Line and Clarke Traffic  Services of Montreal, Canada. The company was incorporated in Bermuda) and commenced operations in 1969 between Antwerp and Southampton in Europe and Halifax, New York and Norfolk in North America. The consortium initially deployed three chartered 210 teu German container ships to Halifax plus four 18,000 ton "Painter" class cargo ships with container capacity of 315 teu - JORDAENS, BREUGHEL, TENIERS and RUBENS - which had been launched in 1963/64 and operated by CMB to US ports. 

Dart started to deploy its purpose-built vessels in 1970, the 1,595 teu DART AMERICA owned by Clarke and her sister ship DART ATLANTIC owned by Bristol City Line and launched in 1971. Both these vessels were later owned by the Bibby Line, which acquired Bristol City Line in 1972. The third ship, DART EUROPE was owned by CMB.

Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) took over the Clarke shareholding in 1973 and the Bibby shareholding in 1980. In 1978, OOCL brought a fourth ship DART CANADA in order to stretch the service to Germany.

The consortium ceased operating in 1981 when the St Lawrence Coordinated Service (SLCS) was formed by OOCL (though its subsidiary Manchester Liners), CMB and CP Ships, and Halifax was dropped for the Canadian service in favour of Montreal. The DART AMERICA became the MANCHESTER CHALLENGE, the DART ATLANTIC the CP AMBASSADOR and the DART EUROPE the CMB EUROPE, while DART CANADA become the CANADIAN EXPLORER.

The SLCS continued to operated by the successor companies, Orient Overseas Container Line, which shed the Manchester Liners name in 1988, while CMB and CP Ships created a joint venture called CanMar (Canada Maritime) in 1984 which became fully owned by CP Ships in 1993. Hapag-Lloyd took over CP Ships in 2007.