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SS Scharnhorst (1904)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
SS Scharnhorst, Watson's Bay, 1907 by Charles Ephraim Smith Tindall
History
Name
  • 1905: Scharnhorst
  • 1920: La Bourdonnais
Namesake1905: Gerhard von Scharnhorst
Owner
Port of registry
RouteBremen – Australia
Ordered1902
BuilderJoh. C. Tecklenborg, Geestemünde
Yard number181
Laid down1902
Launched14 May 1904
Completed20 August 1904
Identification
FateScrapped in 1934
General characteristics
Class and type"General"-class mail steamship
Tonnage8,388 GRT, 4,805 NRT
Displacement13,500 tons
Length453.5 ft (138.2 m)
Beam55.8 ft (17.0 m)
Depth36.0 ft (11.0 m)
Decks4
Installed power696 NHP; 6,000 ihp
Propulsion
Speed14 knots (26 km/h)
Capacity90 × 1st class; 70 × 2nd class; 2,000 × steerage
Crew170

SS Scharnhorst was a German ocean liner and mail ship launched in 1904.

History

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The ship was built at the Joh. C. Tecklenborg shipyard in Geestemünde, Germany, for the Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) shipping company.

The captain of Scharnhorst, 1906

Scharnhorst was one of a class of eleven mail steamships called the "General"-class. Her sister ships were Zieten, Roon, Seydlitz, Gneisenau, Bülow, Yorck, Kleist, Goeben, Lützow and Derfflinger, all built for the German Imperial Mail Service to Australia and the Far East. Occasionally these ships ran on NDL's North Atlantic service.

On 19 December 1908, Scharnhorst arrived in New York harbor, after having been delayed by inclement weather. Two passengers died on the trip, one killed by a wave that smashed him into the railing. Both passengers were buried the next day.[1]

When the First World War started she had made 19 round trips to Australia, seven to the Far East and five to the USA. She was the only ship of her class to be in Germany in 1914, and was used for some time in 1917 and 1918 as a troopship in the Baltic Sea.

In 1919 she was seized by France. In 1920 she was transferred to Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, who renamed her La Bourdonnais, and used her until 1931. In 1934 she was broken up in Genoa.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Heavy seas delay liners" (PDF). The New York Times. December 20, 1908. Retrieved January 24, 2008.

Literature

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  • Edwin Drechsel: Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen, 1857–1970; History, Fleet, Ship Mails, vol. 1. Vancouver: Cordillera, 1995
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