Suevic
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The Suevic was a 1901 passenger ship of the British shipping company White Star Line , which was used in passenger and freight traffic from Great Britain via Cape Town to Australia . In 1928 she was sold to Norway and converted into a whaling ship. In 1942, the ship, named Skytteren since the reconstruction , was sunk by its Norwegian crew on the Swedish coast to prevent it from falling into the hands of the German occupiers.
The ship
The 12,531 GRT steel-built steamship Suevic was commissioned in 1899 from the Belfast shipyard Harland & Wolff and was launched there on December 8, 1900. She was the sister ship of the Runic , which had recently been launched. The two steamers were an addition to the three sister ships Afric , Medic and Persic , with which the White Star Line had opened its Australian service in 1899. These five ships were unofficially known as The Jubilee Class, which reflected the anticipation for the approaching turn of the century .
The 172.2 meter long and 19.3 meter wide ship had three decks , a chimney and four masts . The Suevic was powered by two four-cylinder quadruple expansion steam engines from Harland & Wolff, which acted on two propellers and produced an output of 5000 PSi . The top speed was 13.5 knots. The Suevic could carry 400 passengers in the cabin class and had seven holds. Freight and luggage could be loaded with a total of 21 derrick cranes .
On March 9, 1901, the Suevic was handed over to the White Star Line and on March 23, 1901, she left Liverpool on her maiden voyage to Sydney via Cape Town, Albany , Adelaide and Melbourne . Shortly after the maiden voyage, the Suevic and the other four ships of the Jubilee Class were used as troop transports in the Second Boer War in South Africa . In August 1901, the ship's first and only voyage from Liverpool to New York took place. During a crossing in 1903, officer Charles Lightoller met 18-year-old Sylvia Hawley-Wilson on board the Suevic . They were married in Sydney on November 15, 1903.
Stranding and repairs 1907
On February 2, 1907, the Suevic ran under the command of Captain Thomas Jones with 452 passengers and 141 crew members for the return trip to London. Stopovers were planned in Cape Town, Tenerife and Plymouth . At noon on March 17, 1907, the ship was about 140 miles southwest of the south coast of England in the English Channel in an area that was often avoided because of dangerous rocks, shallow waters and frequent fog.
When the ship's command could not determine the exact position of the ship with the help of astronomical navigation due to the dense fog , they decided to orient themselves at the Lizard Lighthouse at Lizard Point on the Cornwall coast . The lighthouse was sighted shortly afterwards. The distance was calculated to be ten miles, so that the officers felt they were in a safe position. Despite the fog, the Suevic continued to steam along the coast at top speed. Measuring the water depth by plumb was also omitted. 20 minutes after the sighting of the lighthouse, the Suevic ran aground on the rocks of Maenheere Reef with full force. The ship was about sixteen miles closer to shore than had been believed on board.
Captain Jones tried unsuccessfully to get the Suevic off the rocks by running the engines back at full power. He also fired emergency missiles. The rescue operation was carried out by the British sea rescue organization Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). Lifeboats from several nearby coastal towns arrived at the scene of the accident and recovered all passengers and crew members, including 70 small children. The rescue operation, which lasted 16 hours, was the largest in the history of the RNLI to date. As a result, four silver medals were awarded to volunteers and two to crew members of the Suevic .
The cargo of the stranded ship was salvaged on March 20, 1907 by several small freighters. This should make the Suevic lighter and able to swim freely, instead it was driven further out to sea by stormy waves. On April 4, the badly damaged bow section was directly behind the bridge with the help of dynamite from the rest of the hull blasted off. As with most White Star ships, the hull of the Suevic was divided into watertight compartments so that the aft part of the ship was buoyant even without a bow . The Suevic then steamed to Southampton on its own . The severed bow was left on the rocks.
The White Star Line ordered a new 64-meter bow section from Harland & Wolff, which was launched in Belfast in October 1907. The new bow was towed to the John I. Thornycroft & Company shipyard in Southampton, where it arrived on October 26th. In mid-November, both halves of the ship were joined together. On January 14, 1908, the repairs were completed and the Suevic could be put back into service. The repair of the Suevic was the most extensive ship repair that had taken place until then.
First World War
From 1914 served ss suevic as a troop transport in World War I . In March 1915 she brought British soldiers to Moudros to fight at the Battle of Gallipoli . Since the Suevic and its sister ships were able to transport frozen meat in their refrigerated chambers, they nonetheless remained in commercial traffic to transport food for the war effort. From them the Afric went on February 12, 1917 was lost on a voyage from Liverpool via Devonport to Sydney twelve nautical miles south-southwest of the Eddystone lighthouse on the Cornwall coast when it was torpedoed by a German submarine. Persic , which was torpedoed on September 7, 1918 40 nautical miles northwest of the Isles of Scilly with 2,800 American soldiers on board , could still be brought into the next port.
Until 1919, the Suevic remained under the control of the Liner Requisition Theme. On February 7, 1920 she took her first trip after the war on the route London – Melbourne – Sydney. From 1921 the ship only carried 226 passengers in the second class. In March 1924 she completed her 50th crossing. On April 14, 1928, she left London for her last voyage to Australia.
Whaling ship Skytteren
In October 1928 the Suevic was sold to Yngvar Hvistendahls Finnhval A / S based in Tønsberg for £ 35,000 and was renamed Skytteren . In the Germania shipyard in Kiel the passenger steamer was converted into a whaling ship. The Skytteren was henceforth part of the Norwegian whaling fleet in arctic waters. From 1936 Finnhval A / S was controlled by the Norwegian ship magnate Jørgen Krag, who in turn acted on behalf of the German Margarine Union . Until the Second World War, all catches of were Skytteren delivered to Germany.
When the German Wehrmacht occupied Norway on April 9, 1940 (see Norway under German occupation ), the Skytteren was interned with other Norwegian ships in the neutral Swedish city of Gothenburg . The Norwegian government-in-exile laid claim to these ships, which was challenged by the fascist Norwegian party Nasjonal Samling . A court ruling confirmed the government-in-exile's claim.
On April 1, 1942, ten Norwegian ships attempted to get from Gothenburg into waters controlled by the Allies in order to come under the protection of Allied warships. Among them was the Scythians . However, they drove towards waiting German warships. Only two of the ten ships made it to Great Britain, two others managed to escape back to Gothenburg and six were sunk. The Skytteren crew sank their ship west of the island of Måseskär so that it would not fall into the hands of the Germans. The crew members were captured by the Germans . The wreck of the Skytteren lies with the prow pointing west off the Swedish coast.
Web links
- Key data and photos on a website about ships of the White Star Line
- Brief description in The Ships List (below)
- Detailed ship biography and photos
- The Suevic on GreatShips.net
- Pictures from the Suevic's first accident
- The Scythians on lardex.net
Coordinates: 58 ° 9 ′ 21 ″ N , 11 ° 11 ′ 27 ″ E