Category:Fifeshire (ship, 1898)

Ship[edit]

• Type: Passenger Cargo Vessel
• Design by:
• Order date:
• Built by: Clydebank Engineering & Shipbuilding Co., Glasgow
• Yard No: 332
• Keel laid:
• Launch date: Saturday, 15.10.1898
• Date of completion: 1898
• Length over all: 128 m
• LPP: m
• Beam: 16.5 m
• Draught: 8,5 m
• GRT: 5672
• DWT:
• NET: 3628
• Main engine: steam, triple expansion, 309 nhp 3000 ihp
• Speed: 12 kn

History[edit]

• 1898 Named Fifeshire for Elderslie SS Co Ltd (managers Turnbull, Martin & Co Ltd), Glasgow Used on the UK - Australia - New Zealand service Flag: United Kingdom
• 1910 Sold to Scottish Shire Line Ltd (same managers)
• 09.08.1911 Grounded at 22.30 in fine but hazy weather in water of about four fathoms deep, 20 miles south of Cape Guardafui, Gulf of Aden, on passage Brisbane to London with general cargo & Passengers. No loss of life occasioned. Next day the captain sent one of the lifeboats under Mr. Woods, the first officer, with five seamen to obtain assistance. Unfortunately this boat ran into a gale which swept her some 250 miles from the scene of the wreck and she was picked up five days later by the steamship Ardandearg with her occupants at the point of exhaustion. Meanwhile the position of the Fifeshire was decidedly to a dangerous degree. The captain therefore decided to abandon her and four boats under the captain, second, third and fourth officers respectively were got away with all the remaining people. The last boat left at noon on the llth and during daylight they managed to keep fairly near to each other. On the next morning, however, the captain's boat was alone, the second officer's boat which was nearest, having disappeared, and the other having been picked up by the Messageries Maritimes liner Adour. Later the same vessel picked up the captain's boat, but the second officer's boat could not be located. A search by the Italian warship Volturno and the Indian Marine vessel Dalhousie failed to find any survivors and the boat had to be given up as lost. The number missing was 24, of whom 10 were passengers.