The Agnita was the first ship designed and built for the transport of gas in bulk in tanks. However, the Agnita was not a pure gas tanker , apart from the LPG gas tanks, it also had diesel oil and sulfuric acid tanks.
The ship was built in 1930/31 at the Hawthorn, Leslie & Company shipyard in Newcastle according to plans by Anglo-Saxon Petroleum . The Agnita had twelve oil tanks separated by a middle bulkhead and transverse bulkheads, in which riveted cylindrical gas and acid tanks with upper and lower hemispherical ends of 5.26 meters in diameter and 9.91 meters in height were used. The construction of these 2100 m³ tanks made of 24 mm thick steel for a working pressure of 4.14 bar meant a great challenge for the shipyard due to the diverse requirements. In 1931 the ship received two additional gas tanks with a capacity of 100 m³ in the fore section. In 1934, the shipping company had the existing Megara oil tanker converted in a similar way. The classification society gave the ship the class symbol 100A1 Carrying Petroleum in Bulk - Fitted with Cylindrical Tanks , the last passage of which was occasionally expanded with the addition for the carriage of sulphuric acid . The mention of gas transport was not made public in coordination between the shipping company and Lloyd's Register . For economic reasons, other shipping companies should not receive precise information about the gas tanks.
fate
In December 1939 the ship was attacked by a German Heinkel bomber on a trip to Rotterdam in the English Channel , without being hit. This was the first air raid on a tanker in World War II. On March 22, 1941, the Agnita was sunk in the Atlantic by the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran on a trip from Freetown to Caripito in Venezuela .
literature
Robin Gray: Bulk liquefied Gas by Sea: The early Years in Society of international Gas Tanker and Terminal Operators Newsletter Supplement , September 2004
John Lamb: Oil Tanker Cargoes: Their safe And Efficient Handling , Charles Griffin & Company, London, 1954
