In 1920, she returned to civilian service with the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company, but in 1921, the British Government chartered her as a troop ship. In 1922, Canadian Pacific renamed her Marloch. She was scrapped in 1929 after a quarter of a century of successful service.
Background
Charles Parsons had demonstrated the speed of his marine steam turbines in Turbinia launched in 1894 and their reliability in the Clyde excursion steamer King Edward launched in 1901. But King Edward's fuel costs were higher than those of her reciprocating-engined and as a result so were her fares. Passengers accepted the higher cost on King Edward's day trips down the Clyde,[1] but ocean liner companies did not know whether passengers, cargo customers and post offices would accept the higher cost on Atlantic crossings lasting several days.
Canadian Pacific entered the North Atlantic Trade by buying Elder Dempster Lines' Beaver Line subsidiary early in 1903.[2] Allan Line responded by ordering a pair of new express liners. Allan Line originally planned to order conventional twin-screw ships with reciprocating steam engines,[citation needed] but in October 1903 it announced that it had ordered a pair of ships with turbines driving three screws as on King Edward.[3][4]
On 28 January 1904, seven months before Victorian was launched, the Government of Canada announced it had awarded Allan Line a transatlantic mail contract. Four Allan Line ships were to provide a regular scheduled service: the 10,576GRT liners Bavarian and Tunisian, and the new Victorian and Virginian. The subsidy would be $5,000 per trip for Bavarian and Tunisian, and $10,000 per trip for each of the new turbine ships.[5]
Design
Victorian's propulsion system was a scaled-up version of King Edward's. She had three screws. Victorian's Scotch marine boilers had coal-fired furnaces whose smoke was exhausted through a large single funnel. Her boilers fed steam at 180 pounds per square inch (12bar) to the high-pressure Parsons turbine driving her centre shaft. Exhaust steam from the high-pressure turbine drove the low-pressure Parsons turbines on her port and starboard (wing) shafts. All three screws were driven directly at turbine speed.[3]
Victorian was 520.0ft (158.5m) long, her beam was 60.4ft (18.4m) and her depth was 38.0ft (11.6m). Her tonnages were 10,629GRT and 6,744NRT.[6] She had orlop decks fore and aft of her machinery spaces, and three full decks in her hull with berths for 240 second-class passengers on the main and upper deck and up to 940 in third class. Atop the hull, her forecastle was followed by forward holds, a long superstructure with cabins and public saloons for 470 first-class passengers on the bridge and promenade decks, an after hold, and a poop deck. Her holds had space for 8,000 tons of cargo and included refrigerated space for perishable produce.[3]
Building and performance
Despite unsatisfactory initial sea trials, Charles Parsons correctly predicted that Victorian and her sister would be a success
Workman, Clark and Company built Victorian in Belfast, launching her on 25 August 1904.[7] On 5 December it was reported that on sea trials she had failed to reach the 17 knots (31km/h) Allan Line had stipulated in her contract, and as a result John Brown & Company and Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson had suspended building of the much larger turbine ships RMSLusitania and Mauretania for Cunard Line.[8] However, there were conflicting reports as to whether Victorian's initial failure was caused by a shortcoming of her turbines or the design of her hull.[9]
On 16 January 1905, in an address to the Institute of Marine Engineers, Parsons confidently predicted that turbines would supersede reciprocating engines in ships of more than 16 knots (30km/h) and more than 5,000 IHP, and would probably be adopted for ships above 13 knots (24km/h) and 2,000GRT.[10]
On 16 March, it was reported that Victorian had achieved 19.5 knots (36km/h) on sea trials on the Firth of Clyde,[11] with her turbines developing some 12,000 shaft horsepower and turning the screws at 260 RPM.[3] She entered service a week later, and before the end of the year had set an eastbound record of five days and five hours from Rimouski in Quebec to Moville in Ireland, which stood for some time.[3]
On 23 March 1905, Victorian began her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Canada.[3][12] Two days of bad weather prevented her from breaking any record, but she reached Halifax, Nova Scotia via Moville at noon on 1 April after a crossing of seven days and 22 hours.[13] A fortnight later, on 6 April, her sister ship Virginian joined her on the route. The pair were a commercial success, and after some adjustments to her machinery, they maintained a regular transatlantic service between Britain, Ireland and Canada until August 1914.[3]
On 1 September 1905, Victorian was reported to have run aground at Cape St. Charles, Labrador on an eastbound crossing, as dense smoke from forest fires had impaired navigation. She had 19 feet (6m) of water in her number two hold, her 350 passengers were taken off to continue their journey on Allan Line's 10,576GRT liner Bavarian a week later,[14][15] and her mails were taken off and sent eastbound via New York.[16]
On a westbound voyage on the morning of 11 August 1911, 57 of the stewards of Victorian's first and second class dining saloons refused an instruction to help put ashore mail at Rimouski. The stewards later agreed to obey the instruction, but then refused to serve breakfast or lunch to the passengers. When Victorian reached Montreal that evening five Montreal Police vehicles met the ship and officers arrested all 57 stewards for mutiny. Allan Line suggested that the incident could be linked with the ongoing Liverpool transport strike[17] that had begun on 14 June.
By 1912, Victorian was equipped for wireless telegraphy, operating on the 300 and 600 metre wavelengths. Her call sign was MVN.[18]
When RMS Titanic sank on 15 April 1912 Victorian was about 300 nautical miles (560km) astern of her, travelling in the same direction. Victorian's wireless operator received news of the sinking "from RMSCarpathia via RMSBaltic". The operator told Victorian's Master, Captain Outram, but her passengers were not told until she reached Halifax. Outram said that Victorian had to divert "very far south" to avoid icebergs, and that his lookouts saw a great field of ice and 13 icebergs at one time.[19][20]
First World War
On 28 July 1914, the First World War began. The British Admiralty had been converting passenger liners into armed merchant cruisers since shortly before the war, and on 6 August listed eight more to be requisitioned, including Victorian.[21] She was at Quebec that day and was detained accordingly.[22] But she seems to have been allowed to proceed to Liverpool in civilian service, as she was requisitioned on 17 August,[20] and was commissioned at Chatham Dockyard on 21 August. Initially her armament was eight 4.7-inch QF guns:[23] two on her forecastle, two on her forward house, two on her after house and two on her poop deck. Her pennant number was M 56.[24]
The French cruiserCassard, with which Victorian bombarded Moroccan villages in September 1914
From October 1914 until January 1915, Victorian patrolled near the Canary Islands. She called at Freetown in Sierra Leone on 23–24 November. She patrolled the coast of Portugal in February, returned to home waters in March and was out of commission in April and May.[24]
With the 10th Cruiser Squadron Victorian was on the Northern Patrol from June 1915 until July 1917. Her patrols took her to the Norwegian Sea in 1915, around the Faroe Islands and the northern part of the Western Approaches in 1916 and the same plus the Icelandic coast of the Denmark Strait in the first half of 1917.[24]
In May 1916, the two six-pounders were removed from her forecastle and replaced with a pair of anti-aircraft guns. By October 191,6 her armament also included depth charges.[24]
From August 1917 until November 1918 Victorian escorted convoys. In 1918 her pennant number was changed twice: to MI 91 in January and to MI 51 in April. From January 1918 she carried cargo and from April she carried troops, including US Army and Australian Army.[24]
On 4 November 1918 Victorian arrived in the River Mersey to be decommissioned from the Royal Navy. Her guns were removed on 27 November and her unused ammunition was unloaded on 27–29 November.[24]
Canadian Pacific service
Canadian Pacific had taken over Allan Line in 1917. Cammell, Laird refitted Victorian for civilian service, and on 13 April 1920 she resumed her old route between Liverpool, Quebec and Montreal.[20]
In the mid-1920s, Canadian Pacific put Marloch in reserve, but she often saw service.[28]
On 26 June 1925, Marloch was in the Saint Lawrence River at Quebec when the tugOcean King approached to receive a hawser and tow her. Ocean King crossed Marloch's bow too close and the liner rammed the tug. Ocean King capsized, the cold water of the river caused her boilers to explode, and all nine crew of the tug were killed.[29][30]
On 3 February 1926, in fog in the Scheldt off Vlissingen, Marloch collided with the 1,655GRT UK cargo shipWhimbrel, which was holed on her starboard quarter and sank.[31][32]Marloch was damaged and was towed to Southampton for repair.[20]
RMS Empress of Russia was a steam turbine ocean liner built in 1912–13 by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland for Canadian Pacific steamships (CP). She regularly worked the trans-Pacific route between Canada and the Far East.
RMS Aquitania was an ocean liner of the Cunard Line in service from 1914 to 1950. She was designed by Leonard Peskett and built by John Brown & Company in Clydebank, Scotland. She was launched on 21 April 1913 and sailed on her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York on 30 May 1914. She was given the title of Royal Mail Ship (RMS) like many other Cunard ocean liners since she carried the royal mail on many of her voyages. Aquitania was the third in Cunard Line's grand trio of express liners, preceded by RMS Mauretania and RMS Lusitania, and was the last surviving four-funnelled ocean liner. Shortly after Aquitania entered service, the First World War broke out, during which she was first converted into an auxiliary cruiser before being used as a troop transport and a hospital ship, notably as part of the Dardanelles Campaign.
RMS Caronia was a Cunard Line transatlantic steam ocean liner. She was launched in 1904 and scrapped in 1932. In World War I she was first an armed merchant cruiser (AMC) and then a troop ship.
RMS Empress of Britain was a steam turbine ocean liner built between 1928 and 1931 by John Brown shipyard in Scotland, owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company and operated by Canadian Pacific Steamship Company. She was the second of three Canadian Pacific ships named Empress of Britain, which provided scheduled trans-Atlantic passenger service from spring to autumn between Canada and Europe from 1931 until 1939.
RMS Empress of Britain was a transatlantic ocean liner built by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company at Govan on the Clyde in Scotland in 1905–1906 for Canadian Pacific Steamship (CP). This ship – the first of three CP ships to be named Empress of Britain – regularly traversed the transatlantic crossing between Canada and Europe until 1923, with the exception of the war years. Empress of Britain was the sister ship of RMS Empress of Ireland, which was lost in 1914.
SS Cap Trafalgar was a German ocean liner launched in 1913 for the Hamburg Süd line. In 1914, she was converted for use as an auxiliary cruiser during World War I. She was the first armed merchant cruiser sunk by a ship of the same class; she was destroyed by HMS Carmania, also a converted ocean liner, in a furious action in the South Atlantic on 14 September 1914. It was the world's first battle between former ocean liners.
SS Drottningholm was a steam turbine ocean liner. One of the earliest of her type, she was designed as a transatlantic liner and mail ship for Allan Line, built in Scotland, and launched in 1904 as RMS Virginian.
RMS Carmania was a Cunard Line transatlantic steam turbine ocean liner. She was launched in 1905 and scrapped in 1932. In World War I she was first an armed merchant cruiser (AMC) and then a troop ship.
SS Cleveland was a German transatlantic ocean liner that was launched in 1908 and scrapped in 1933. Cleveland was built for the Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) as a sister ship for Cincinnati.
RMS Campania was a British ocean liner owned by the Cunard Line, built by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company of Govan, Scotland, and launched on Thursday, 8 September 1892.
SS Megantic was a British transatlantic ocean liner that was built in Ireland and launched in 1908. She was one of a pair of sister ships that were ordered in 1907 by Dominion Line but completed for White Star Line.
SS Laurentic was a British transatlantic ocean liner that was built in Belfast, Ireland, and launched in 1908. She is an early example of a ship whose propulsion combined reciprocating steam engines with a low-pressure steam turbine.
SS Calgarian was an Allan Line steam turbine ocean liner that was built in 1914 and converted into a Royal Navy armed merchant cruiser. Until 1916 she served with the 9th Cruiser Squadron, patrolling off West Africa and then off the east coast of the United States. She spent the remainder of her career making transatlantic crossings between Canada and Britain.
The second SS Laurentic was a 18,724 GRT steam ocean liner built in 1927 by Harland and Wolff, Belfast, for White Star Line. She was the last steamship to be built for White Star Line.
SS Statendam was a transatlantic ocean liner that was launched in Ireland in 1898 for Holland America Line. She was the first of several ships in the company's history to be called Statendam. She was NASM's first ship of more than 10,000 GRT, and she was the largest ship in the company's fleet until Potsdam was completed in 1900.
SS Rochambeau was a French transatlantic ocean liner of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT). She was launched in 1911 and was the first French ship to be powered by a combination of reciprocating steam engines and steam turbines.
RMS Otranto was an ocean liner that was built for the Orient Steam Navigation Company in 1925. The "RMS" prefix stands for Royal Mail Ship, as she carried overseas mail under a contract between Orient Line and Royal Mail. Otranto was in service until 1957, when she was sold for scrap.
Furness Bermuda Line was a UK shipping line that operated in the 20th century. It was part of Furness, Withy and ran passenger liners between New York and the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda from 1919 to 1966.
SS Grampian was a transatlantic ocean liner that was built in Scotland in 1907 and scrapped in the Netherlands in 1925. She was operated originally by Allan Line, and later by Canadian Pacific Steamships. In the First World War she remained in commercial service but carried Canadian troops. In 1919 she survived a collision with an iceberg. In 1921 she was gutted by fire while being refitted. The refit was abandoned, and in 1925–26 she was scrapped.
RMS Orama was a British steam ocean liner and Royal Mail Ship. She was launched in 1911 for the Orient Steam Navigation Company. When new, she was the largest liner sailing between Great Britain and Australia.
Baker, WA; Tryckare, Tre (1965). The Engine Powered Vessel. New York: Grosset & Dunlap.
Corbett, Julian S (1920). Naval Operations. History of the Great War. Vol.I: To The Battle of the Falklands December 1914. London: Longmans, Green & Co.
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