Christensen Canadian African Lines

Christensen Canadian African Lines (CCAL) was a Norwegian cargo shipping company that traded between Canada and Africa between 1948 and 2000.

Consul Lars Christensen founded the company in 1948 after a suggestion by his friend Alfred Clegg of Kerr Steamship as a liner service provider between east coast of Canada and South Africa.

With further growth of the traffic, calls to Mombasa, Tanga and Dar es Salaam in East Africa were added and the company name changed into Christensen Canadian African Lines (CCAL).

Early in 1960 negotiations were opened between the South African Citrus Exchange in Pretoria and CCAL to carry oranges from Cape Town to Montreal.

Later, when the vessels had sophisticated cooling chambers installed with the required ventilation, boxes as packaging were replaced with cartons.

Due to the decrease of cargo in the early to middle 1980's, it was decided that CCAL would no longer serve East Africa on a regular basis and that the vessels would turn around at Durban, or often Richard's Bay.

In order to compensate for this, a call to ports in Portugal was added, causing an increased transit time between Cape Town and Montreal of about nine days.

CCAL operated at this time a 21-day multi-purpose service between Eastern Canada, Great Lakes and South Africa, using three "Astrakhan" type vessels.