The Edinburgh Castle (II) was a passenger steamer put into service in 1910, which was used by the British shipping company Union-Castle Line for passenger and mail traffic between Great Britain and South Africa . For years she was one of the largest ships in the shipping company. She remained in passenger service until 1938 and was sold in 1940.
history
The 13,330 GRT steamship Edinburgh Castle was built at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast , Northern Ireland . She had an identical sister ship , the Balmoral Castle (13,361 GRT), which was built at the same time at Fairfield Shipbuilders in Govan and was launched two months earlier. The two ships were the first steamers on the Union-Castle Line to exceed the 13,000 ton mark. They remained the largest ships in the shipping company until after the First World War . Only the Arundel Castle and the Windsor Castle , which entered service in 1921 and 1922, respectively, exceeded them in tonnage. The Edinburgh Castle was named after the castle of the same name in Edinburgh . She was the second of three ships on the Union-Castle Line to bear this name.
The 173.74 meter long and 19.50 meter wide ship had two chimneys, two masts and two screws. It was powered by two quadruple expansion steam engines that developed 2234 nominal horsepower (NHP) and allowed a cruising speed of 14 knots. The ship could carry 320 passengers in the first, 230 in the second and 270 in the third class. The Edinburgh Castle was launched on January 27, 1910 and was completed on April 28, 1910. In May 1910 she left for her maiden voyage to South Africa, where she arrived after a journey of 16.5 days. On August 14, 1914, she left Cape Town with passengers and mail for another crossing to England, but was surprisingly ordered to Gibraltar to take garrison troops on board. On the rest of the voyage to England she was accompanied by the protected cruiser Minerva .
Then the steamer was converted into an armed auxiliary cruiser (Armed Merchant Cruiser) and used for patrol trips in the South Atlantic . In January 1915, she left the British naval base in Devonport to take part in the hunt for the German small cruiser Karlsruhe and the auxiliary cruiser Crown Prince Wilhelm in the Atlantic . In 1916 she was refurbished in Simon's Town and from 1918 she was used as an escort ship for North Atlantic convoys .
In 1919 the Edinburgh Castle was returned to its owners and restored for passenger service. It was equipped with new passenger accommodations for 235 passengers in first, 295 in second and 250 in third class. In 1928 the passenger areas were modernized again and provided with beds for 120 first class, 68 second class and 200 third class. In 1938 the Edinburgh Castle was withdrawn from service and put up. In January 1940 she was bought by the British Admiralty and used as a barge for the Royal Navy during the war in Freetown and as temporary accommodation for survivors of sunken ships. In September 1945 she was released from this service. Since it would not have been worthwhile to have to drag the old ship to England, it was on November 5, 1945 by the tug Empire Lawn moved 60 miles out to sea and by shell fire and depth charges of three trawlers sunk.
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