The SS
Suevic was a steamship built by Harland and WolffHarland and Wolff Heavy Industries is a British diversified heavy industrial company specialising in shipbuilding, ship breaking, offshore construction, modular construction, civil and marine engineering, renewables and associated project management, located in Belfast, Northern Ireland.The...
in BelfastBelfast is the capital of and the largest city in Northern Ireland, a constituent country of the United Kingdom. It is the seat of devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly. It is the largest urban area in the province of Ulster, and the second largest city on the island of...
for the White Star LineThe Oceanic Steam Navigation Company or White Star Line of Boston Packets, more commonly known as the White Star Line, was a prominent British shipping company, today most famous for its ill-fated luxury flagship, the RMS Titanic, and the World War I loss of her sister ship, Britannic...
. Suevic was the fifth and last of the "Jubilee Class"
ocean linerAn ocean liner is a ship designed to transport people from one seaport to another along regular long-distance maritime routes according to a schedule. Liners may also carry cargo, mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes .Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes referred to as...
s, built specifically to service the
LiverpoolLiverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
-
Cape TownCape Town is the second most populous city in South Africa, and the largest in land area, forming part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality. It is the provincial capital of the Western Cape, as well as the legislative capital of South Africa, where the National Parliament and many...
-Sydney route. In 1907 she was shipwrecked off the south coast of England, but in the largest rescue of its kind, all passengers and crew were saved. The ship herself was deliberately broken in two, and a new bow was built on to the saved stern portion.
The SS
Suevic was a steamship built by Harland and WolffHarland and Wolff Heavy Industries is a British diversified heavy industrial company specialising in shipbuilding, ship breaking, offshore construction, modular construction, civil and marine engineering, renewables and associated project management, located in Belfast, Northern Ireland.The...
in BelfastBelfast is the capital of and the largest city in Northern Ireland, a constituent country of the United Kingdom. It is the seat of devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly. It is the largest urban area in the province of Ulster, and the second largest city on the island of...
for the White Star LineThe Oceanic Steam Navigation Company or White Star Line of Boston Packets, more commonly known as the White Star Line, was a prominent British shipping company, today most famous for its ill-fated luxury flagship, the RMS Titanic, and the World War I loss of her sister ship, Britannic...
. Suevic was the fifth and last of the "Jubilee Class"
ocean linerAn ocean liner is a ship designed to transport people from one seaport to another along regular long-distance maritime routes according to a schedule. Liners may also carry cargo, mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes .Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes referred to as...
s, built specifically to service the
LiverpoolLiverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
-
Cape TownCape Town is the second most populous city in South Africa, and the largest in land area, forming part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality. It is the provincial capital of the Western Cape, as well as the legislative capital of South Africa, where the National Parliament and many...
-Sydney route. In 1907 she was shipwrecked off the south coast of England, but in the largest rescue of its kind, all passengers and crew were saved. The ship herself was deliberately broken in two, and a new bow was built on to the saved stern portion. Later serving as a Norwegian
whalingWhaling is the hunting of whales which dates back to at least 3,000 BC. The evolution of traditional Arctic whaling developed with increasing rapidity by early organized fleets in the 17th century; competitive national whaling industries in the 18th and 19th centuries; and the introduction of...
factory ship carrying the name Skytteren
, she was scuttled off the Swedish coast in 1942 to prevent her capture by ships of Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
.
Design and construction
When White Star inaugurated service from Liverpool to Sydney in 1899, they commissioned three ships to be built for that route, Afric
, Medic
The SS Medic was a steamship built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast for the White Star Line in 1899. Medic was one of three "Jubilee Class" ocean liners, the other two being the SS Afric and SS Persic, built specifically to service the Liverpool-Cape Town-Sydney route.Medic, like her sisters, was a...
and Persic. All three were single-funnel liners which measured just under and were configured to carry 320
steerageSteerage refers to the lowest decks of a ship. This area of the ship was once used to accommodate passengers travelling on the cheapest class of ticket, and offered only the most basic amenities, typically with limited toilet use, no privacy, and poor food...
or third class passengers. Because these ships were launched in the last year of the 19th century, they were referred to as the "Jubilee Class", reflecting the popular mood regarding the coming of the new century. With the popularity of this route amongst immigrants to Australia, White Star quickly decided to order two more of the class, both of which would be slightly larger than the first three. The first of these was Runic
(the second ship of that name), launched on 25 October 1900. The second, and largest of the class, was Suevic
, at 12,531 gross registered tonnesThe terms "Tonnage" and "Ton" have different meanings and are often confused. Tonnage is a measure of the size or cargo capacity of a ship. The term derives from the taxation paid on tuns of wine, and was later used in reference to the weight of a ship's cargo; however, in modern maritime usage,...
. Runic
and Suevic
had several minor design changes, the most noticeable of which were the lengthening of the poop deckIn naval architecture, a poop deck is a deck that constitutes the roof of a cabin built in the aft part of the superstructure of a ship....
, and the moving of the bridgeThe bridge of a ship is an area or room from which the ship can be commanded. When a ship is underway the bridge is manned by an OOW aided usually by an AB acting as lookout...
closer to the bowThe bow is a nautical term that refers to the forward part of the hull of a ship or boat, the point that is most forward when the vessel is underway. Both of the adjectives fore and forward mean towards the bow...
. These ships could carry 400 passengers and had seven cargo holds, some of which were refrigerated.
White Star service
Suevic
was launched on 8 December 1900, and set sail on her maiden voyageThe maiden voyage of a ship, aircraft or other craft is the first journey made by the craft after shakedown. A number of traditions and superstitions are associated with it....
to Sydney on 23 March 1901. Shortly thereafter, Suevic and her four sisters were pressed into service carrying troops to fight in the
Boer WarTwo Boer Wars were fought between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics, the Orange Free State and the South African Republic , founded by settlers known as Voortrekkers who made the Great Trek from the Cape Colony....
in South Africa. In August 1901 she made her one and only voyage from Liverpool to New York City. Once the Boer War was over, White Star was finally able to institute regular monthly service to Australia using the Jubilee-class ships.
On one 1903 voyage, a young officer named
Charles LightollerCommander Charles Herbert Lightoller DSC & Bar, RD, RNR was the second mate on board the Titanic, and the most senior officer to survive the disaster...
was assigned to crew Suevic
as a punishment. During the voyage, he met an 18-year old woman who was returning to her home in Sydney, and after a shipboard courtship, the two were married in Sydney on 15 December 1903. Lightoller would later become the second officerA second mate or second officer is a licensed member of the deck department of a merchant ship. The second mate is the third in command and a watchkeeping officer, customarily the ship's navigator. Other duties vary, but the second mate is often the medical officer and in charge of maintaining...
on board the RMS Titanic
The RMS Titanic was an Olympic-class passenger liner owned by British shipping company White Star Line and built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, United Kingdom...
, and the most senior of her crew to survive the disaster.
Navigational errors
Suevic's first six years of service were uneventful, but then disaster struck. On 2 February 1907 she left
MelbourneMelbourne is the capital city and most populous city of the State of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne city centre is the anchor of the larger geographical area and statistical division known as the Greater Melbourne metropolitan area – of which Melbourne is...
with scheduled stops at Cape Town,
TenerifeTenerife, a Spanish island, is the largest of the seven Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. Tenerife has an area of 2034.38 square kilometers, and 886,033 inhabitants, which make it the most populated island of the Canary Islands and Spain. About five million tourists...
,
PlymouthPlymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
, London and finally Liverpool, under the command of Thomas Jones. On 17 March 1907, she was inbound to Liverpool with 382 passengers 141 crew members and a nearly-full cargo, including thousands of sheep carcasses worth £400,000.
By noon, she was 140 miles off the southwest coast of England. This section of the English coast posed a number of dangers to shipping, due its shallow waters, sharp rocks, and often-dense fog, so it was normally avoided. However, by the afternoon, the ship had entered a typically dense fog bank. By 10 pm, the ship's officers were not able to fix their position using
stellar navigationCelestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is a position fixing technique that was devised to help sailors cross the featureless oceans without having to rely on dead reckoning to enable them to strike land. Celestial navigation uses angular measurements between common celestial objects...
, so they intended to use instead the
Lizard lighthouseThe Lizard Lighthouse is a lighthouse in Lizard Point in Cornwall, United Kingdom, built in 1752. A light was first exhibited from that point in 1619, but demolished in 1630. Trinity House took responsibility for the station in 1771. The Lizard Lighthouse was automated and demanned in 1998.The...
on
Lizard Point, CornwallLizard Point in Cornwall is the southernmost tip of the Lizard Peninsula. It is the southernmost tip of Great Britain, at 49°57' N, and, with the exception of parts of the Isles of Scilly is the southernmost part of England...
(known simply as "The Lizard"), which they soon spotted. Upon seeing the light, they calculated that it was at least 10 miles away, and thus that they were safe. Despite the fog, they pressed ahead at full speed, without using the
sounding lineA sounding line or lead line is a length of thin rope with a plummet, generally of lead, at its end. No matter what metal the plummet is made of, it's still referred to as "the lead."...
to ensure they were not approaching the shore.
Twenty minutes after sighting the lighthouse, the ship ran aground violently at full speed amongst the rocks of Maenheere Reef, a quarter of a mile off The Lizard. Suevic was about 16 miles closer to the shore than her command crew believed.
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.
The rescue was led by the
Royal National Lifeboat InstitutionThe Royal National Lifeboat Institution is a charity that saves lives at sea around the coasts of the British Isles, as well as inshore. It was founded on 4 March 1824 as the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, adopting the present name in 1854...
(RNLI), and it became the largest rescue in that institution's 183-year history. RNLI lifeboats, manned by local volunteers from stations at the Lizard,
CadgwithCadgwith is a picturesque village and fishing port in Cornwall, United Kingdom, situated on the Lizard Peninsula between The Lizard and Coverack....
,
CoverackCoverack is a coastal village and fishing port in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated on The Lizard peninsula.Coverack is a small fishing village situated on the south-east corner of the Lizard peninsula...
and
PorthlevenPorthleven is a town, civil parish and fishing port in Cornwall, United Kingdom, near Helston. It is the most southerly port on the island of Great Britain and was originally developed as a harbour of refuge, when this part of the Cornish coastline was recognised as a black spot for wrecks in days...
, rescued all the passengers, including 70 babies, as well as the crew. The operation took 16 hours to complete. As a result of the successful efforts of the rescuers, four silver RNLI medals were awarded to various volunteers and two were awarded to Suevic
crew members for their actions. In March 2007 a ceremony was held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the rescue.
Salvage
The bow section was badly damaged, but not irreparably so, and the rest of the ship, including the boilers and engines, were not damaged at all. 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.
With the bow now irretrievably stuck, and the threat of even worse weather coming which could completely destroy the ship, White Star officials decided to attempt an unorthodox method of saving the stern half of the ship, which was not grounded nor damaged, by separating it from the damaged bow. Suevic, like other White Star liners, had been built with watertight compartments as a safety precaution. Depending on the integrity of this design, engineers used carefully placed charges of dynamiteDynamite is an explosive material based on the explosive potential of nitroglycerin, initially using diatomaceous earth or another absorbent substance such as sawdust as an absorbent...
to sever the bow at a bulkhead just aft of the bridge on 4 April. This move was successful, and the aft half of the ship floated free. The watertight compartments held their integrity, and Suevic was able to steam under her own power, in reverse and guided by tugs, to SouthamptonSouthampton is the largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire, on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
. The damaged bow was left to break up on the rocks.
Rebuilding: the "longest ship in the world"
White Star then ordered a new 212-foot bow section from Harland and Wolff in Belfast, which was launched head-first in 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. The new bow was then towed to the shipyards of J. I. Thorneycroft & Co. in Southampton, where it arrived on 26 October. By mid-November, it was in position and being joined to the rest of the ship. The bow was a good fit, a testimony to the craftsmanship of the Harland and Wolff shipwrights. Ten months later, after the largest ship rebuilding effort ever undertaken at the time, on 14 January 1908, Suevic was completed and returned to service.
War service
When the First World WarWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
began, many British ships were pressed into war service. The ability to carry frozen meat in their refrigerated holds meant that the "Jubilee Class" liners were left in commercial service so that they could bring provisions for the war effort, although they also carried troops on their normal route. Suevic did make one dedicated war run, in March 1915, carrying British troops to MoudrosMoudros is a municipality on the island of Lemnos, in the Lesbos Prefecture, Greece. It covers the entire eastern peninsula of the island, with a land area of 185.127 km². It is the largest municipality in area on the island, covering 38.8% of the island's territory. The municipal seat is the...
, as a part of the Dardanelles CampaignThe Gallipoli Campaign took place at Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey from 25 April 1915 to 9 January 1916, during the First World War. A joint British Empire and French operation was mounted to capture the Ottoman capital of Istanbul, and secure a sea route to Russia...
. From that point, until 1919, Suevic operated under the British Navy's Liner Requisition Scheme rather than under White Star management, although she continued on her commercial route to Australia.
SS
Skytteren
Following the war, White Star refitted Suevic, adding the capacity for 266 second-class passengers, after which she returned to her Australian route. In March 1924, she completed her 50th voyage on that route. In 1928, though, Suevic was showing her age, and White Star sold her to Yngvar Hvistendahl's Finnhval A/S for £35,000, who renamed her Skytteren and sent her to GermaniawerftFriedrich Krupp Germaniawerft was a German shipbuilding company, located in the harbour at Kiel, and one of the largest and most important builders of U-boats for the Kaiserliche Marine in World War I and the Kriegsmarine in World War II.-History:The company was founded in 1867 by Lloyd Foster, as...
at KielKiel is the capital and most populous city of the northern German state Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of over 236,000 .Kiel is approximately to the north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore...
to be converted into a whaling factory ship.
When Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
invaded Norway in 1940, early in the Second World War, Skytteren was interned in the neutral port of Göteborg, Sweden, with several other Norwegian ships in April 1940. The exiled Norwegian government claimed these ships as its property, which was contested by the Nasjonal SamlingNasjonal Samling was a fascist party in Norway active in the period 1933–45...
government in occupied Norway. However, a court ruling favoured the exiled government's claim.
On 1 April 1942, 10 Norwegian ships at Göteborg 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 Swedish ships steered the escapees towards waiting German warships. Of the 10, two made it through to the British, six were sunk by the Germans or scuttled by their crew, of which Skytteren were one, two turned back to Göteborg. Skytteren were scuttled in the waters off Maseskär, Sweden. Her crew were taken as prisoners of warA prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a combatant who is held in continuing custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
. The wreck of the Suevic/Skytteren remains in those waters, with her bow facing to the west.
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