Red Star Line

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The Red Star Line
IndustryShipping, transport
Founded1835; 189 years ago (1835) in Kunovec, Tuvaria
FateActive as of 2023
Area served
Central Arcturia and Almodarian Seas
ParentTrgovina Trading Co.
SubsidiariesKunovec shipyards
Footnotes / references
House Flag of Red Star Line

The Red Star Line is an Almodarian (formally Tuvarian) shipping company. The Company was founded in the early days of steam technology to capitalize off of the Phoenixia and Trgovina Shipping Company trade route amongst other routes in Almodaria. Gradually over time, the Red Star Line became the premier shipping company in the country and have since begun focusing on passenger travel. The only time where ocean travel through their services was closed down was in the Almodarian Civil War where cruises ships were unable to be used.

Early History (1835-1860)

Prior to 1835, the Trgovina Trade Co. was the only trade company in operation under Tuvaria. The company was the sole service for every trade line leaving and entering Tuvaria, and the Phoenixia-Trgovina Trade Company (PTTC) which connected the Kingdom of Arafors (now phoenixia) with the Almodarian Region. Trgovina in limited numbers also conducted passenger transportation on their sail ships starting in 1783 to maximize profits during the post war depressions in the region. Skip forward to 1835, and the company were up to their neck in bills and notices as trade was stagnating and the PTTC route was weakening. The company's board of operations had an option of either laying off employees and scrapping ships or declaring bankruptcy which would be detrimental to the country. The choice was made in 1835 to instead form a subsidiary company which would take over operations while Trgovina would become simply a management company. This subsidiary was named Red Star Line in reference to the symbolic red star used commonly by the Tuvarian government for government logos and had their headquarters in the port city of Kunovec, Tuvaria.

File:EdwardGaronovic.png
Edward Garonovic was the first chairman of Red Star Line and authorized the construction of the Explorer Class.

By the 1830s, steam technology was in its early days with many steam liners still had sails to help with propulsion. The first ship in operation under the Red Star name was the SS Explorer (istraživač in Almodarian) in 1839 and was the first Almodarian ship to use steam power to assist the ship in speed. It was designed for cargo delivery and made its first voyage in 1840 to the Skavarian port city of Vukrovna in which it successfully transported 200 pounds of various cargo, including the house flag of Red Star Line. This success proved that the Red Star Line could be capable enough if given the opportunity and in 1843, their dockyards expanded and the Explorer Class as they were called, was expanded with the ships SS Ingenuity (1844) and SS Inspiration (1844). In 1846, the company experienced a PR hiccup when their SS Ingenuity collided with a smaller sailboat in neutral waters (Aranistani and Almodorian waters) where one member of the small ship's crew was killed in the collision while the Ingenuity only experienced a crack in its hull. The ship would exit service for a year for repairs and the company would pay compensation to the crew for the death and damages but in 1847, Ingenuity returned to original service.

The company had its first reputation scar, but this did not affect very much for their trade and in 1848, SS Inspiration made the first trip to Arafors as part of the PTTC trade. The ship unloaded 300 pounds of fish and construction materials and just like with the maiden voyage of Explorer, left the House Flag of Red Star Line amongst the cargo. The successes of SS Inspiration strengthened the PTTC trade relationship and trade would continue regularly.

Red Star Line wouldn't encounter another major hiccup until 1853 when the flagship of the Explorer Class, SS Explorer, sustained severe damage by an underwater boulder whilst on transit to Almodor. The damage led to gallons of seawater to flow into the ship and the captain was forced to abandon ship. SS Explorer sunk only 23 minutes later with no casualties accounted for. The ship would later be salvaged due to the shallow location it sunk in. Unlike the Ingenuity collision, this incident led to the loss of a whole vessel. The reason that the rock was not missed was due to a lack of marking on the maps used by the navigation crew whom had maps that failed to mark the collection of jagged rocks in the area.