Probably the shortest career with the Esso fleet of any vessel which actually carried cargo for the Company was that of the second Esso Albany. Her career lasted just 48 days, from her delivery on November 22, 1941, at Chester, Penna., until her sale to the United States Maritime Commission at New York, January 9, 1942. During this period she carried three cargoes of crude oil, totaling 336,341 barrels, from Texas ports to New York. Her master was Captain Lester S. McKenzie. Chief Engineer Daniel C. Dunn was in charge of her engineroom. The second Esso Albany became, following her sale, the Navy oiler USS Housatonic. The first Esso Albany was a National Defense Features tanker sold to the U. S. Navy on the day of her delivery and renamed USS Sabine. The second SS Esso Albany was built in 1941 by the Sun Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company at Chester, Penna. She is a sistership of the second Esso New Orleans, the second Esso Raleigh - both still with the Esso fleet - and the second Esso Trenton, which became the Navy oiler USS Chicopee. A single-screw vessel of 16,640 deadweight tons capacity on international summer draft of 30 feet, 1 1/16 inches, the Esso Albany has an overall length of 520 feet, a length between perpendiculars of 500 feet, a moulded breadth of 68 feet, and a depth moulded of 37 feet. With a cargo carrying capacity of 138,520 barrels, she has an assigned pumping rate of 7,000 barrels an hour. Her turbine engine, supplied with steam by two water-tube boilers, develops 9,900 shaft horsepower and gives her a speed of 16.2 knots.