Lutetia (ship)
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The Lutetia was a passenger steamer put into service in 1913 for the French shipping company Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique . During the First World War , she served as a troop transport for the French Navy . She was decommissioned in 1937 and scrapped in Scotland the following year .
The ship
In 1912, a new passenger ship was laid down at the Chantiers de Penhoët shipyard in Saint-Nazaire . The 14,783 gross register tonnes (GRT) Lutetia was built for the French shipping company Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique, founded in 1910 and based in Bordeaux , in order to be able to keep up with other ships of the competition, mainly the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique . It was named after the ancient name of the city of Paris .
On March 13, 1913, the 176.5 meter long and 19.5 meter wide steamer was launched. It had two steam turbines and eight boilers ; the maximum speed was 20.5 knots. There was space on board for a total of 1000 passengers. The Lutetia , which was equipped with two masts , three chimneys and four propellers , was completed in October 1913. She was the sister ship of the Gallia (14,966 GRT), which was built at the Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée shipyard in La Seyne-sur-Mer near Toulon . The two ships were the largest ocean liner of their shipping company until then. They were built for passenger and postal service from France to Brazil and Argentina . The French painter François de Marliave (1874–1953) worked on the interior of the Lutetia .
history
On May 19, 1914 at about 18.00 that ran Lutetia in Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro with a stop in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and laid on May 29, 1914 around 12.00 after nine days and 18 hours in Rio. On June 1, 1914 at 17.00 pm, they reached Buenos Aires . The Lutetia's service life as a civilian merchant ship was very limited, as the First World War broke out the following month. After an interlude as a hospital ship , she was commandeered by the French Navy on March 19, 1915 and converted into an armed auxiliary cruiser . For its defense, it was equipped with 75 mm and 90 mm cannons. In May 1915, she brought French troops ashore on the Gallipoli peninsula . In October 1916 she transported Russian soldiers to Thessaloniki .
On October 13, 1917, the Lutetia was released from military service and was then used again in civilian passenger traffic. In 1937 the 24 year old ship was decommissioned. On January 12, 1938, it arrived in the English port town of Blyth to be scrapped.