SS Cathay (1924)
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SS Cathay was a P&O passenger steamship that was built in Scotland in 1925 and sunk in the Mediterranean Sea in 1942. In the Second World War she was first an armed merchant cruiser and then a troop ship. In 1942 she took part in Operation Torch, and was sunk in a German air raid off Bougie, Algeria.[1]
Cathay in Sydney Harbour in the 1930s | |
History | |
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United Kingdom | |
Name | Cathay |
Namesake | Cathay |
Owner | P&O Steam Navigation Co |
Operator |
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Port of registry | Glasgow |
Route | London – Sydney |
Ordered | 1923 |
Builder | Barclay Curle & Co, Glasgow |
Yard number | 602 |
Laid down | 1924 |
Launched | 31 October 1924 |
Completed | March 1925 |
Acquired | 12 March 1925 |
Maiden voyage | 27 March 1925 |
Identification |
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Fate | Sunk by air raid, 1942 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | P&O Cathay-class ocean liner |
Tonnage | |
Length | |
Beam | 70.2 ft (21.4 m) |
Depth | 42.3 ft (12.9 m) |
Decks | 3 |
Installed power | 1,905 NHP, 13,437 ihp |
Propulsion |
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Speed | 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph) |
Capacity |
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Crew | 278 |
Sensors and processing systems |
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Armament |
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Notes | sister ships: Comorin, Chitral |
Cathay was the first of a class of three ocean liners for P&O, all built at the same time. Her sister ships were Comorin and Chitral.
This was the second of three P&O liners called Cathay. The first was a compound steamship that was built in Scotland in 1872 and scrapped in Japan in 1903.[2] The third was a steam turbine ship that P&O owned between 1961 and 1976. She was built in Belgium in 1957 as Baudouinville. In 1976 P&O sold her to China, where she was renamed first Kengshin and then Shanghai.[3]