SS Suevic
58°09′30″N 11°11′40″E / 58.15833°N 11.19444°E
SS Suevic
| |
History | |
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United Kingdom | |
Name | Suevic |
Owner | White Star Line |
Port of registry | Liverpool, England |
Ordered | 1899 |
Builder | Harland and Wolff shipyard, Belfast |
Yard number | 333 |
Launched | 8 December 1900 |
Completed | 9 March 1901 |
Maiden voyage | 23 March 1901 |
Fate | Sold, 1928 |
Norway | |
Name | Skytteren |
Owner | Finnhval A/S |
In service | 1928 |
Homeport | Tønsberg, Norway |
Fate | Scuttled 1 April 1942 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Jubilee-class ocean liner |
Tonnage | 12,531 GRT |
Length | 565 ft (172 m) |
Beam | 63.3 ft (19.3 m) |
Depth | 39.9 ft (12.2 m) |
Installed power | Two Four-cylinder quadruple-expansion steam engines |
Propulsion | Two propellers |
Speed | 13.5 knots (25.0 km/h; 15.5 mph) service speed |
Capacity | 400 passengers 3rd class only |
SS Suevic was a
Design and construction
When
White Star service
Suevic was launched on 8 December 1900, and set sail on her maiden voyage to Sydney on 23 March 1901. Shortly thereafter, Suevic and her four sisters were pressed into service carrying troops to fight in the
On one 1903 voyage, a young officer named
Shipwreck
Suevic's first six years of service were uneventful. On 2 February 1907 she left Melbourne under the command of Captain Thomas Johnson Jones with scheduled stops at Cape Town, Tenerife, Plymouth, London and finally Liverpool.[5] On 17 March 1907, she was inbound to Plymouth with 382 passengers,[6] 141 crew members and a nearly-full cargo, including thousands of sheep carcasses worth £400,000.[5][2]
By noon, she was off the southwest coast of England on the approach to Plymouth. This section of the English coast was hazardous, due to shallow waters, sharp rocks, and often-dense fog. By 10 pm, Suevic was encountering a strong south-westerly winds and severely reduced visibility due to showers of drizzling rain, the ship's officers were not able to fix their position using stellar navigation, so they intended to use instead the Lizard lighthouse on Lizard Point, Cornwall (known simply as "The Lizard"). At 10:15 pm the lighthouse was sighted through the gloom: at the ship's estimated position it should have been more than 10 miles (16 km) away, however unbeknown to the crew, due to miscalculations Suevic was 16 miles (26 km) ahead of her estimated position.[7][1][8]
Not realising the error, the captain wrongly estimated that the lighthouse was several miles away; this was in part due to fog over the lighthouse which threw its beam down low on the horizon, and made it appear further away than it actually was. The ship pressed ahead at full speed, without using the
Rescue
Jones first made several attempts to back the ship off the rocks, running the engines at full astern, to no avail. Despite her position, the ship did not appear to be in danger of sinking. The captain ordered the distress rockets to be fired, and a local rescue effort ensued, with all the passengers and crew escaping to shore safely.[1][5]
The rescue of the crew was led by the
By coincidence, later the same night, another smaller liner
As a result of the successful efforts of the rescuers, six silver RNLI medals were awarded; four to members of the lifeboat crews, and two to members of Suevic's crew for their actions: Two silver RNLI gallantry medals were awarded to Edwin Rutter and Rev. "Harry" Vyvyan, of the Cadgwith Lifeboat crew: another two were awarded to William Mitchell, and Edwin Mitchell, of The Lizard Lifeboat crew. Two more were awarded to George Anderson and William "Bill" Adams of Suevic's crew.[11]
In March 2007 a ceremony was held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the rescue.[9][12]
Salvage
The bow section was badly damaged, but not irreparably so, and the rest of the ship, including the boilers and engines, was not damaged at all.[5] It was determined that if the ship could be lightened, the tide would then lift her off the bottom and she could be sailed to port. With this in mind, three days later, on 20 March, the cargo was unloaded into small coastal freighters. Initially, it appeared that the attempt would succeed but, a week later, after various other vessels had attempted to pull Suevic off the rocks, the weather deteriorated and waves drove her farther onto shore, from whence she could not be moved.[7]
With the bow now irretrievably stuck, and the threat of even worse weather coming which could completely destroy the ship, many experienced salvage men believed that the only course of action was to abandon Suevic to her fate. However, the Liverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association, acting on behalf of the White Star Line, suggested an unorthodox method of salvaging the ship. As the rear 400 feet (120 m) of the ship's length was undamaged and this portion contained the boilers, engines and passenger accommodation, they believed it would be worthwhile to attempt saving the stern half of the ship by cutting the ship in two and separating it from the impaled bow. White Star decided this was a worthwhile risk as, if successful, rebuilding the ship would be a cheaper option than building a replacement vessel.[2]
Suevic, like other White Star liners, had been divided into watertight compartments by watertight bulkheads which could, if they held their integrity, allow the ship to remain afloat even if divided. Engineers selected a point just aft of the bridge to cut the ship in two. As oxyacetylene was not available in 1907, this had to be achieved by detonating carefully-positioned charges of dynamite. The work to place the explosive charges was hazardous, and took several days, as it could only be undertaken by divers at high or low tide when there was little tidal movement. The move was a success, and on 2 April the aft half of the ship floated free. The exposed watertight bulkhead remained secure, and Suevic was able to steam under her own power, in reverse and guided by tugs, to Southampton. The damaged bow was left on the rocks to be broken up by the waves, as well as to be scavenged by locals. Whatever was left of the bow was broken up by the pounding waves on the night of 9/10 May 1907.[2][8][13][1][5]
Rebuilding
Suevic's stern was taken first to Southampton's Test Quay where it docked on 4 April, and attracted considerable crowds and publicity. Two days later, it was taken to be dry docked at the Trafalgar drydock, owned by Harland & Wolff, where preliminary repair work was undertaken. White Star then ordered a new 212-foot (65 m) bow section from Harland and Wolff in Belfast, which was slightly longer than the original to allow proper grafting. The new bow was launched head-first on 5 October 1907. It was popularly said at the time that Suevic was the longest ship in the world, with her bow in Belfast and her stern in Southampton.[2]
The new bow arrived on 26 October. By mid-November it was in position and being joined to the rest of the ship. Men from the shipbuilders, J. I. Thornycroft, in Southampton were also employed to assist the Harland and Wolff workforce in getting Suevic rebuilt as quickly as possible, the bow was then attached to the stern section.[5] Three months later, after the largest ship-rebuilding effort ever undertaken at the time, on 14 January 1908, the work on Suevic was completed and the vessel returned to service.[2][1][3]
Whilst the rebuilding was underway, Suevic's master, Captain Jones, was found liable for her wrecking at the Court of Enquiry, and had his Certificate of Competency suspended for three months, although the trip had been his last before his retirement.[2][7]
War service
When the
In military service, Suevic was known as His Majesty's Australian Transport, HMAT A29 Suevic and made several journeys.[14]
Post-war
Following the war, White Star refitted Suevic in 1920, modernising her passenger accommodation which was reconfigured to carry 266 second-class passengers, after which she returned to the Australian service with her remaining sisters Medic, Persic and Runic (her fourth sister Afric having been lost in the war). In March 1924, she completed her 50th voyage on that route. In the late-1920s White Star began withdrawing the Jubilee-class ships from service, Suevic continued in service with White Star until she was retired in 1928.[2][7]
As Skytteren
In October 1928, White Star sold her to Yngvar Hvistendahl's Finnhval A/S of Tønsberg, Norway for £35,000. She was renamed Skytteren and sent to Germaniawerft at Kiel to be converted into a whaling factory ship. The conversion involved the installation of a stern ramp, whereby whale carcasses could be hauled onto deck, and the installation of tanks with the capacity for 80,000 barrels of whale oil. Skytteren was then employed on the Antarctic whaling fleet.[7][1][2]
When
On 1 April 1942, ten Norwegian ships at Gothenburg made an attempt to escape into Allied-controlled waters, where they would be met and protected by a group of British warships. However, Sweden would not allow the Norwegian ships to use their neutral waters for this, and so Swedish ships steered the escapers towards international waters. The Germans, however, had been tipped off about the escape attempt and were lying in wait. Of the ten, only two made it through to the British, two turned back to Gothenburg, two were sunk by the Germans, and the remaining four, of which Skytteren was one, were scuttled by their crews after being confronted by German warships. Skytteren was scuttled in the waters off Måseskär, Sweden, with the loss of one crew member. The rest of her 111 strong crew were captured by the Germans and taken as prisoners of war.[15][1][3]
Wreck
The wreck of Skytteren lies at a depth of around 70 metres (230 ft) at the position (58°09′30″N 11°11′40″E / 58.15833°N 11.19444°E) lying starboard side up with her bow facing to the west.[15] Skytteren was carrying a large amount of oil in her tanks when she sank. For several years after 2005, oil was observed to be leaking to the surface from the decaying wreck, leading to concerns about the potential environmental threat.[16][17][18]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Suevic". Great Ocean Liners.com. Archived from the original on 10 October 2009. Retrieved 22 August 2007.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7110-3366-5.
- ^ a b c "Suevic". GreatShips.com. Retrieved 22 August 2007.
- ^ Winship, Pat (22 June 2005). "Charles Herbert Lightoller". Encyclopedia Titanica. Retrieved 22 August 2007.
- ^ a b c d e f "Suevic". Titanic-Titanic.com. Retrieved 22 August 2007.
- ^ The number of passenger varies between sources. The BBC lists it as 456, including 70 babies. The 382 listed in other sources, when added to the number of babies, comes to 452. It is likely that the discrepancies are due to the infants not being listed on the manifest as paying passengers.
- ^ ISBN 0-946378-16-9.
- ^ a b c "Ship Surgery". Shipping Wonders Of The World. 12–19 May 1936. Retrieved 3 August 2018.
- ^ a b c "SS 'Suevic': The greatest sea rescue". The Independent. 12 March 2007. Retrieved 1 August 2018.
- ^ "News from 1907: Suevic's Grounding". Encyclopedia Titanica. 17 March 2004. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
- ^ "The greatest-ever rescue remembered". Lizard-lifeboat.co.uk. Archived from the original on 31 October 2007. Retrieved 17 June 2008.
- ^ "Biggest RNLI rescue is remembered". BBC News. 11 March 2007. Retrieved 22 August 2007.
- ^ "Remembering The Suevic". BBC. Retrieved 22 August 2007.
- ^ "His Majesty's Australian Transports [HMAT] Ships, Transporting the AIF". Australian Light Horse Studies Centre. Retrieved 31 July 2017.
- ^ a b "Kvarstad Ships & Men". War Sailors. Retrieved 2 August 2018.
- ^ Johanna Holmer (June 2008). "Skytteren - ett vrak med historia". Aktuellt från Kustbevakningen (in Swedish). No. 3. Archived from the original on 17 August 2010. Retrieved 1 August 2018.
- ^ "Vrak som möjliga miljöhot" (Press release) (in Swedish). Preem. Archived from the original on 29 March 2008. Retrieved 1 August 2018.
- ^ Kepplerus, Katarina (Spring 2010). The Importance of Solving Legal Problems Regarding Wrecks – Risks Posed by Dangerous Wrecks in Swedish Waters (Masters thesis). University of Lund. p. 51. Retrieved 2 August 2018.
External links
- S.S. Suevic - A Passenger's Diary
- Winchester, Clarence, ed. (1937), "Ship surgery", Shipping Wonders of the World, pp. 450–454 illustrated description of the wreck and salvage of SS Suevic