La Savoie
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The La Savoie was a transatlantic passenger steamer put into service in 1901 for the French shipping company Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT). She and her sister ship La Lorraine were the first CGT ships with a volume of over 10,000 gross register tons and the largest ships under the French flag in the first years of the 20th century. In her 21 years in the North Atlantic passenger traffic ( excluding the war years), the La Savoie made 446 crossings, carried 275,000 passengers and covered 1,382,000 miles.
history
The steamship La Savoie was built at the Chantier et Ateliers de Saint-Nazaire shipyard in Saint-Nazaire and was launched on March 31, 1900. The ship, 171.63 meters long and 18.29 meters wide, was powered by two four-cylinder triple expansion steam engines with an output of 22,000 hp (approx. 16,200 kW ) and a top speed of 21.5 kn (40 km / h ). The planned average cruising speed was 20 kn (37 km / h). The steamer could carry 437 passengers in first class, 118 in second class and 398 in third class.
The La Savoie had an identical sister ship , the La Lorraine (also 11,168 GRT), which was launched six months before her at the same shipyard. The two ships had two masts , two red and black funnels and two propellers and were the first ocean liners in the CGT fleet with a tonnage of over 10,000 GRT. They were only surpassed in size by La Provence (13,752 GRT), which was commissioned in 1906 . The two fast and luxurious ocean liners were built to carry passengers and mail from Le Havre across the North Atlantic to New York .
On August 31, 1901, the La Savoie left Le Havre on her maiden voyage to New York, which took six days and eleven hours. She returned to Le Havre in six days, 13 hours and two minutes. In January 1902 she was hit in a storm in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean by an enormous monster wave , which severely damaged one of the chimneys and parts of the superstructure. In March 1905 it was equipped with wireless radio technology. On August 17, 1905, on the way to New York, the port drive shaft bearing broke in two places . The ship made it into New York Harbor on its own at a speed of 14 knots . The repairs were made at Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Virginia. Such technical incidents occurred several times in the following years.
On June 24, 1911, the ship took part in the Coronation Fleet Review on the occasion of the coronation of the British King George V in Spithead . On July 18, 1914, the La Savoie left for her last voyage in peacetime.
As an armed auxiliary cruiser , the former passenger steamer served mainly for patrol and troop trips until it was assigned to the French Mediterranean fleet in January 1915 . He landed units near the Dardanelles and in the eastern Mediterranean , where he was once damaged by Turkish coastal guns. At the beginning of 1916, La Savoie and La Lorraine took part in the transport of Serbian forces from Corfu to Thessaloniki . In May 1917, La Savoie brought American troops to France.
On April 26, 1919, the La Savoie resumed its passenger and mail traffic on the transatlantic route from Le Havre to New York. In March 1923, the passenger accommodations were modernized, so that from then on there was space for 430 passengers in the cabin class and 613 in the third class. On September 25, 1927, the La Savoie took off from Le Havre to New York for the last time after 26 years of service. On November 25, 1927, it steamed from Le Havre to Dunkirk , where it was scrapped in 1928.
Footnotes
- ↑ a b c d e Site French Lines, Paquebot La Savoie : History French, online ( Memento from February 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed June 22, 2013)