In 1871 the Trinidad correspondent of the ''
The Gardeners' Chronicle'' said bananas were the only export of Aspinwall (
Colón, Panama). The trade was mainly confined to four merchants. They sent the fruit by American
steamers, known to the people as banana boats, which carried five to six thousand bunches on each trip. Plantations were around or from the town, and annually the merchants contracted sole rights with growers to take their entire crop at a set price per bunch, delivered to the side of
the railroad. When a steamer was sighted, the farms were alerted to prepare and, once the merchant had confirmed how many bunches it could take, his agents went to contracted farms telling each how many thousand bunches it was to provide. Aspinwall exported around 150,000 bunches of bananas to New York each year. Shipping companies were set up, and the American
United Fruit Company was formed through mergers in 1899. in
coveralls, as a passenger enjoying life on a banana boat, May 1926,
Barbados to
Avonmouth, England
after working in Barbados. Her handwritten note at bottom reads "After visit round Banana holds." In 1901, banana boats began calling at
Avonmouth, England, where the dock workers, employed on a
casual basis, valued getting several days work with good wages and overtime, and called them "plum" ships.
Elders & Fyffes began operations, then itself came under control of the United Fruit Company in 1910. In the 1930s, refrigerated ships such as and which were engaged in the Central America to United States trade also operated as luxurious passenger vessels. Surplus naval vessels were converted in some cases in the search for speed with Standard Fruit converting four U.S. Navy destroyer hulls, without machinery, to the banana carriers
Masaya,
Matagalpa,
Tabasco and
Teapa in 1932. Transfers to naval service served as transports and particularly chilled stores ships such as , the United Fruit passenger and banana carrier
Quirigua, and the lead ship of a group that were known as the
Mizar class of stores ships. Modern banana boats tend to be
reefer ships or other refrigerated ships that carry cooled bananas on one leg of a voyage, then general cargo on the return leg. The large companies in the banana trade, such as
Standard Fruit Company and United Fruit Company in the United States, and
Fyffes Line in the UK, acquired or built ships for the purpose, some strictly banana carriers and others with passenger accommodations. United Fruit operated a large fleet, advertised as
The Great White Fleet, for over a century until its successor
Chiquita Brands International sold the last ships in a sale with leaseback in 2007 of eight refrigerated and four container ships that transported approximately 70% of the company's bananas to North America and Europe. At one time the fleet consisted of 100 refrigerated ships and was the world's largest private fleet with some being lent to the
Central Intelligence Agency to support the attempted overthrow of the
Castro regime in the
Bay of Pigs landing. == In popular culture ==