The Sardinia was a passenger steamer put into service in 1902 by the British shipping company Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), which was used in passenger and mail traffic between Great Britain and the Far East . Despite being torpedoed in 1918, the ship survived the First World War and was in service until 1925.
history
The 6574 GRT steamship Sardinia was built under hull number 431 at the Barclay, Curle and Company shipyard in Glasgow and was launched on June 12, 1902. She was one of the five S-Class ships that P&O built for passenger and freight services from London to the Far East. Her sister ships , which were all completed in 1901, were the Sicilia (also built by Barclay, Curle & Company), the Somali (by Caird & Company ), the Soudan (by Caird & Company) and the Syria (by Alexander Stephen and Sons ).
The Sardinia was 137.25 meters long, 15.94 meters wide and had a maximum draft of 8.29 meters. She could carry 90 passengers in the first class and 70 in the second class. She was powered by two three-cylinder triple expansion steam engines, which acted on two propellers and allowed a top speed of 14 knots. The engine output was 4500 PSi . The ship was officially registered on July 14, 1902.
On February 4, 1918, the Sardinia was torpedoed by a German submarine while she was traveling in a convoy through the Mediterranean . The 62 passengers and most of the crew were transferred to a warship , but the captain, FG Cadiz, and 32 crew members remained on board. To prevent the bulkheads from collapsing, the ship steamed at a speed of only 3.5 knots with the stern first over 60 nautical miles to Oran , where makeshift repairs were carried out. The Sardinia then went to Gibraltar , where final repairs were made.
In 1919 the ship came back into civilian passenger traffic after it had been used to repatriate Australian soldiers after the end of the war. On February 23, 1925, the ship was sold to Kishimoto Kisen KK in Japan for demolition . It arrived in Osaka on July 20, 1925 and was scrapped shortly afterwards.
