Scotia (ship, 1861)
The Scotia before the conversion to a cable layer
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The Scotia was a paddle steamer built in 1861 , which was converted into a cable lay in 1879.
history
The Scotia was delivered by the shipyard R. Napier & Co., Glasgow and put into service for the Cunard Line in 1861: It was the last paddle steamer built for the company. In 1863 the ship received the Blue Ribbon for the fastest transatlantic passage between Europe and New York for both the westbound and eastbound passage and held the award for several years.
In 1875 the ship was laid up in Liverpool and in 1879 acquired by Telegraph Construction & Maintenance Co., which had it converted and equipped for its future function as a cable laying company .
In 1879 the Scotia laid the cable from Aden to Zanzibar and in 1884 between Lizard and Bilbao . In 1887 she laid the cable from Porthcurno to Gibraltar , from Gibraltar to Malta and in 1893 the cable from Zanzibar to the Seychelles and from Cape Town to Moçâmedes . Then cables were laid along the South American coast and, together with the Britannia in 1902, the German Atlantic cable from Borkum to the Azores and to New York . The 7993 kilometer long cable was manufactured by the Norddeutsche Seekabelwerke (NSW) in Nordenham .
In 1903 the ship was sold to the Commercial Cable Co., who used it for maintenance and auxiliary work on their cable network. In 1904 the ship ran into a reef near Guam and sank.
Description of Scotia
During the renovation at the Laird Brothers shipyard , the paddle wheels were removed and replaced with two propellers. Instead of the holds, two cable tanks with a diameter of around 12 m and 10 m and a height of 7 m each and a cable tank with a diameter of around 11 m and a height of 5 m were installed. A double bow roller was installed on the bow to take up cables and the cable machine was installed on the foredeck. The stern was given a single roll for laying cables. In terms of laying work, Scotia is one of the busiest cable layers.
Cable laying work carried out by the ship
- 1879: Penang - Malacca - Singapore - Banjoewangie
- 1880: Aden - Zanzibar
- 1880: Renewal of a large part of the transatlantic cable laid in 1866
- 1882: Greetsiel - Borkum - Valencia
- 1883: Vladivostok - Nagasaki - Shanghai
- 1883: Hong Kong - Fuzhou - Shanghai
- 1884: The Lizard - Bilbao
- 1884: Madeira - São Vicente
- 1884: São Vicente - Pernambuco
- 1885: Bathurst - Freetown - Accra - Lagos - Brass - Bonny
- 1887: Porthcurno - Carcavelos - Gibraltar - Malta - Zakynthos
- 1889: Cape Town - Moçâmedes
- 1890: Sydney - Wellington
- 1890: Aden - Suez
- 1891: Fanø - Oye
- 1893: Zanzibar - Seychelles - Mauritius
- 1894: Valentia Island - Hearts Content, Newfoundland
- 1894: Singapore - Labuan
- 1894: Labuan - Menumbok
- 1894: Labuan - Hong Kong
- 1896: Greetsiel - Borkum - Vigo
- 1898: Jamaica - Turks Islands - Bermuda
- 1898: Porthcurno - Gibraltar
- 1900: Rio de Janeiro - Pernambuco - Pará
- 1900: Montevideo - Maldonado - Rio de Janeiro
- 1901: Coconut Islands - Cottesloe, Perth - Glenelg, Adelaide
- 1901: North Sydney - Saint-Pierre and Miquelon - Bay Roberts
- 1902: Cottesloe, Perth - Adelaide
Web links
- Description of the ship in English , accessed on January 17, 2017