Orion (ship, 1935)
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The RMS Orion was a 1935 passenger ship of the British shipping company Orient Steam Navigation Company , which was used in passenger and mail traffic from Great Britain to Australia . It was considered a milestone on the Australia route in terms of comfort and speed and remained in service until 1963.
The ship
The 23,371 GRT steam turbine ship Orion was built at the Vickers-Armstrong shipyard in the English port city of Barrow-in-Furness . The 202.7 meter long and 25.6 meter wide ship had a maximum draft of 9.1 meters and was propelled by a set of six Parsons turbines , which had an output of 24,100 SHP and operated on two propellers . The top speed was 21 knots. The Orion's sister ship was the Orcades (23,456 GRT), which was built at the same shipyard and completed in 1937. They were the largest ships of the Orient Steam Navigation Company to date.
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The Orion set new standards in passenger accommodation. She was a two-class ship with a capacity of 708 passengers in the cabin class and 700 in the tourist class. The crew consisted of 466 people. She was the first British ship whose lounges were equipped with air conditioning. She was also the first ship of the shipping company, whose hull was given the maize-colored paint that later became characteristic of ships of the Orient Line. Furthermore, she was the first ship of the shipping company since 1902 that had only one funnel and the very first that had only one mast . The architecture magazine The Architectural Review , published in Great Britain since 1896, called the Orion a "milestone in the evolution of the modern liner".
The interior of the Orion was designed by the New Zealand designer and architect Brian O'Rorke. O'Rorke wanted to adapt the interior to the conditions of a boat trip to Australia, i.e. a long stay on the high seas and high temperatures. The result was a relatively airy design with numerous sliding and removable walls, glass sliding doors and wide promenade decks to let as much fresh, cool sea air into the ship as possible. Emphasis was placed on straightforward, bright furnishings and plenty of light in the rooms that had no direct access to the boat deck. Chrome and Bakelite surfaces were used throughout the ship because they were more resistant to corrosion from sea air and water.
The Orion was launched on December 7, 1934 in Barrow-in-Furness and was christened by Henry, Duke of Gloucester . It was the first time that a British ship was launched by remote control, as the Duke of Gloucester was in Brisbane , Australia at the time . This idea was copied from an earlier launch of a Holland-America Line ship . In August 1935, the ship was completed and then used for some tours from London . On September 28, 1935, ran Orion in Tilbury for their maiden voyage to Australia. Until the outbreak of war in 1939, the Orion operated in regular passenger and mail traffic to Australia and was also occasionally used for cruises with space for 600 leisure travelers.
War effort
After the outbreak of war, the Orion was requested by the British government as a troop transport and sent to Egypt and then to Wellington (New Zealand) to pick up troops there and bring them to Europe. She left Wellington on January 6, 1940 and joined a convoy as far as Sydney , which also included her sister ship Orcades .
On September 15, 1941, she was part of a convoy that brought troops to Singapore . She was driving across the South Atlantic just behind the battleship Revenge when the Revenge's rudder malfunctioned . The Orion did not come to a stop in time and hit the stern of the Revenge , severely damaging its bow . She made it to Cape Town , where makeshift repairs were made, and then on to Singapore, where the damage was permanently repaired. As the Japanese army was approaching Singapore at this point, the Orion was tasked with evacuating civilians .
In October 1942, the Orion was one of the many former passenger ships that took part in Operation Torch as a transport . She carried out two troop trips to North Africa and each had over 5000 soldiers on board. In 1943 their transport capacity was increased to 7,000 people. It was later used in the Pacific region. By the time she was discharged from the military, the Orion had carried more than 175,000 forces and covered 380,000 miles.
Late years
On May 1, 1946, the Orion arrived at Vickers-Armstrong in Barrow-in-Furness to be restored as a passenger ship. The renovation took over a year and included new passenger accommodation for 546 people in first class and 706 in tourist class. On December 25, 1947, she sailed from Tilbury to Australia and was the first ship of the Orient Steam Navigation Company to make a civilian voyage again after the war.
After that she undertook three cruises on the American west coast and other trips from Europe to Australia. In 1958 the travel quarters were rebuilt again (342 cabin class and 722 tourist class) and in 1961 the Orion was finally converted into a single-class ship with space for 1691 travelers. At this point in time, however, demand for the Australian route was already falling sharply.
On February 28, 1963, the Orion set sail for her last crossing to Sydney via Piraeus and Suez . On April 8, 1963, the departure from Sydney took place and on May 15, she reached Tilbury after stops in Melbourne and Fremantle . The ship was then chartered by Otto Friedrich Behnke GmbH from Hamburg to serve as a hotel ship with space for 1150 guests during the 1963 International Garden Show in Hamburg. The Orion arrived in Hamburg on May 23, 1963 . The garden show ended on September 30th and the following day the Orion left for Antwerp , where it was scrapped at Jos Boel et Fils that same year.