Strathmore (ship)
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The Strathmore was a 1935 passenger ship of the British shipping company Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), which was built for passenger and mail traffic from Great Britain to Australia . During the Second World War , the ship served as an Allied troop transport . In 1963, the Strathmore was sold to Greek owners and broken up in Italy in 1969 .
Early years
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The 23,580 GRT Strathmore was ordered in 1934 and was the third of five sister ships that P&O put into service in the 1930s and were called The White Sisters because of their white hull paint. The others were the Strathnaver (1931), the Strathaird (1932), the Stratheden (1937) and the Strathallan (1938). They were the largest ships in the history of P&O until then and were only surpassed by even larger ships after the Second World War .
The 195.16 meter long and 25.08 meter wide Strathmore had a chimney, two masts and two propellers . The maximum speed was 20 knots. In contrast to the first two ships of the Strath class, the Strathmore was not powered by turbo-electric steam turbines, but by conventional steam turbines with an output of 24,000 shaft horsepower. 525 passengers in first class and 500 passengers in tourist class could be accommodated. It was considered the equivalent of the RMS Orion of the Orient Line , which entered service in the same year.
The Strathmore was launched on April 4, 1935 and was christened by Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon , Duchess of York . The name of the ship referred to the nobility title of her father Claude Bowes-Lyon, Earl of Strathmore . On September 15, 1935, the ship successfully completed its sea trials and on September 18, 1935, it was handed over to its owners. On September 27th, a test drive to Dakar , Cádiz and Lisbon was undertaken. On 26 October 1935, the put Strathmore in London on her maiden voyage to Bombay from. In November 1935 she started her first regular scheduled trip from England to Australia.
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In February 1936 she was in Gibraltar for three days due to a machine failure . When she left London for Bombay on March 28, 1936, she had the Marquess of Linlithgow , the new Viceroy of India , on board. On the way back, she brought his predecessor, the Earl of Willingdon , back to Great Britain. On September 8, 1936, off Lisbon, the ship was found in the line of fire between two Portuguese warships , whose crews mutinied , and armed loyalists on the shore. The shore leave for the passengers was canceled for safety reasons. On April 22, 1937, the bow of the ship was damaged when the Strathmore hit Ballard Pier while docking in the port of Bombay. It had to be repaired in dry dock .
War effort
On March 31, 1940, de Strathmore was drafted by the Ministry of Shipping (later the Ministry of War Transport ) for service as a troop transport . There were no major incidents during their war effort. On May 15, 1948 it was returned to P&O and extensively repaired by Vickers-Armstrong from 1948-49.
Late years
On October 28, 1949, the Strathmore ran for her first civilian voyage after the end of the war from London to Bombay and Sydney . In July 1950, she was the first P&O ship to stop in Marseille after the war . In October 1956 she collided with the Norwegian ship Baalbek off Gravesend . In 1961 the Strathmore was converted into a single class ship with accommodations for 1250 travelers. The port of call in Bombay has been canceled. At this point, however, the age of the ship was already noticeable. On October 22, 1963 it was announced that the Strathmore would be decommissioned. On October 27, 1963, she ran for the last time in Southampton at the end of her last trip to Australia .
On November 8, 1963, it was sold together with the Stratheden to the Greek ship magnate John S. Latsis (1910-2003) from Piraeus and renamed Marianna Latsi . It was now used in pilgrimage from Karachi to Mecca and also as a hotel ship in Jeddah . In 1966 the name was changed to Henrietta Latsi . It was launched on April 18, 1967 in the Bay of Eleusis . The former P&O ship was sold to Terrestre Marittima SpA in Italy for demolition and arrived on May 27, 1969 in La Spezia , Italy , where it was scrapped shortly afterwards.