RMS ''Alcantara'' was a
Royal Mail Lines
The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company was a British shipping company founded in London in 1839 by a Scot, James MacQueen. The line's motto was ''Per Mare Ubique'' (everywhere by sea). After a troubled start, it became the largest shipping group ...
ocean liner
An ocean liner is a passenger ship primarily used as a form of transportation across seas or oceans. Ocean liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes (such as for pleasure cruises or as hospital ships).
Ca ...
that was built in
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
in 1926. She served in the Second World War first as an
armed merchant cruiser
An armed merchantman is a merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in lo ...
and then a
troop ship
A troopship (also troop ship or troop transport or trooper) is a ship used to carry soldiers, either in peacetime or wartime. Troopships were often drafted from commercial shipping fleets, and were unable land troops directly on shore, typicall ...
. She returned to civilian service in 1948 and was scrapped in 1958.
Background
In the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
the
Royal Mail Steam Packet Company
The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company was a British shipping company founded in London in 1839 by a Scot, James MacQueen. The line's motto was ''Per Mare Ubique'' (everywhere by sea). After a troubled start, it became the largest shipping group ...
lost a number of ships to enemy action, including three of its "A-series" passenger liners: , and . After the
1918 Armistice RMSP prioritised the replacement of lost
cargo ship
A cargo ship or freighter is a merchant ship that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year, handling the bulk of international trade. Cargo ships are usu ...
s, using new
refrigerated cargo ships to take a share of the growing trade in frozen meat from South America to the UK.
High demand for new merchant ships to replace First World War losses kept shipbuilding prices high, so RMSP Chairman
Lord Kylsant
Owen Cosby Philipps, 1st Baron Kylsant (25 March 1863 – 5 June 1937) was a British businessman and politician, jailed in 1931 for producing a document with intent to deceive.
Background
Philipps was the third of five sons of the Reverend Sir J ...
deferred ordering any new passenger liners for a few years. However, in 1921
Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
passed the first of five
Trade Facilities Acts, which offered low-interest loans and Government guarantees for repayment. In 1924 Kylsant took advantage of the Act by ordering from
Harland and Wolff
Harland & Wolff is a British shipbuilding company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It specialises in ship repair, shipbuilding and offshore construction. Harland & Wolff is famous for having built the majority of the ocean liners for the W ...
of
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...
a pair of passenger liners with a speed of .
As a diesel-powered motor ship
![Kenneth-shoesmith-the-liner-alcantara-at-sea-1928](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Kenneth-shoesmith-the-liner-alcantara-at-sea-1928.jpg)
Harland and Wolff launched the new
''Asturias'' on 7 July 1925 and completed her in February 1926. Her
sister ship
A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They often share a ...
''Alcantara'' was launched on 23 September 1926 and completed in February 1927. The latter was named after RMSP's previous
''Alcantara'', which was an
armed merchant cruiser
An armed merchantman is a merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in lo ...
in the First World War and had been lost when she and the German armed merchant cruiser sank each other in 1916.
The new ''Alcantara'' was given the UK
official number
Official numbers are ship identifier numbers assigned to merchant ships by their flag state, country of registration. Each country developed its own official numbering system, some on a national and some on a port-by-port basis, and the formats hav ...
148151 and
code letters
Code letters or ship's call sign (or callsign) Mtide Taurus - IMO 7626853"> SHIPSPOTTING.COM >> Mtide Taurus - IMO 7626853/ref> were a method of identifying ships before the introduction of modern navigation aids and today also. Later, with the i ...
KVQC. When four-letter
maritime call sign
Maritime call signs are call signs assigned as unique identifiers to ships and boats. All radio transmissions must be individually identified by the call sign. Merchant and naval vessels are assigned call signs by their national licensing author ...
s were introduced in 1934, ''Asturias'' was given the call sign GLQR.
Each of the two new ships was powered by a pair of eight-cylinder
four-stroke
A four-stroke (also four-cycle) engine is an internal combustion (IC) engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes while turning the crankshaft. A stroke refers to the full travel of the piston along the cylinder, in either directio ...
double-acting diesel engines
The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-calle ...
built by Harland and Wolff to a
Burmeister & Wain
Burmeister & Wain was a large established Danish shipyard and leading diesel engine producer headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded by two Danes and an Englishman, its earliest roots stretch back to 1846. Over its 150-year history, it g ...
design. The engines gave each ship 10,000
ihp or 7,500
bhp
BHP Group Limited (formerly known as BHP Billiton) is an Australian multinational mining, metals, natural gas petroleum public company that is headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
The Broken Hill Proprietary Company was founded ...
, and at the time they were the World's largest motor ships. However, their cruising speed was only , which was less than that of competing ships already on the route between European ports and the South American east coast. This was an embarrassment for Lord Kylsant, who in 1924 had become Chairman of Harland and Wolff in addition to his position as chairman of RMSP.
In comparison, ''
Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique
Portrait of Cyprien Fabre by Adolphe Déchenaud
Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique was a French shipping company prominent in the South American routes.
Founding
In July 1912 a new convention was entered into between the French government ...
'' had two liners on the route,
''Lutetia'' (1913) and
''Massilia'' (1920), that were smaller and older but at could offer a passage that was quicker by several days.
Hamburg Süd
Hamburg Südamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft A/S & Co KG, widely known as Hamburg Süd, is a German container shipping company. Founded in 1871, Hamburg Süd is among the market leaders in the North–South trade. It also serves a ...
also competed on the route with its , . In 1927 Hamburg Süd strengthened its competition by introducing the liner , which not only matched the speed of the French ships but at also became the largest ship on the route between Europe and South America.
Repowering with steam turbines
In 1931 the
Royal Mail Case
The Royal Mail Case or ''R v Kylsant & Otrs'' was a noted English criminal case in 1931. The director of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, Lord Kylsant, had falsified a trading prospectus with the aid of the company accountant to make it look ...
resulted in the jailing of Lord Kylsant, and in 1932 the company was reconstituted as a new body, Royal Mail Lines, chaired by
Lord Essendon. He claimed that German, Italian, and French competitors were running ships to South America at , giving a passage about five days quicker than RMSP. The new RML company immediately considered how to raise the speed of ''Asturias'' and ''Alcantara''. Essendon concluded that foreign competitors were losing money at 22 knots, but a range of options to raise the speed of ''Asturias'' and ''Alcantara'' to should be evaluated. Essendon also proposed inviting foreign competitors to agree on a 19-knot speed limit on the South American route, so that all companies could economise on fuel and attempt to cover their costs.
At that time marine diesel power was at a relatively early stage of development, and RML considered it unable to increase the two ships' speed to the required level. Lord Essendon therefore recommended
steam turbines
A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...
, and two options for the drive system: either conventional reduction gearing, or the newer
turbo-electric transmission
A turbo-electric transmission uses electric generators to convert the mechanical energy of a turbine (steam or gas) into electric energy, which then powers electric motors and converts back into mechanical energy that power the driveshafts.
Tur ...
that had been pioneered in the USA and successfully applied to US, UK and French ocean liners. Whichever transmission was chosen, the cost of re-engining ''Asturias'' and ''Alcantara'' was estimated at about £500,000. Lord Essendon also urged RML directors to order a third ship of similar speed to share the route with ''Asturias'' and ''Alcantara''.
Given the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
at the time, the RML board rejected the idea of a new ship. At first it was prepared to have only one ship re-engined, and proposed reassigning the other to
cruising to replace the ageing A-series liner . However, in May 1933 the board consented to have both ''Asturias'' and ''Alcantara'' re-engined, and at the same time to lengthen their bows and improve the accommodation. RML awarded the work to Harland and Wolff, but with a condition in the contract that the ships must achieve at least , and a graduated penalty clause in case the actual speed increase should fall short of that figure. In the same year, Lord Essendon succeeded in getting RML's competitors to accept a 19-knot speed limit on the South American route.
Harland and Wolff fitted each ship with three water-tube boilers supplying
superheated steam
Superheated steam is steam at a temperature higher than its vaporization point at the absolute pressure where the temperature is measured.
Superheated steam can therefore cool (lose internal energy) by some amount, resulting in a lowering of its ...
at 435
lbf/in2 to a set of six turbines that drove her twin propeller shafts by single reduction gearing. The
National Physical Laboratory helped the shipyard to design new
aerofoil
An airfoil (American English) or aerofoil (British English) is the cross-sectional shape of an object whose motion through a gas is capable of generating significant lift, such as a wing, a sail, or the blades of propeller, rotor, or turbine.
...
-section
manganese bronze
Manganese Bronze Holdings plc (MBH) was the holding company of LTI Limited. The firm's sole business in its final years as a company was London black taxicab manufacturing through the LTI subsidiary.
The Manganese Bronze and Brass Co was foun ...
three-bladed
propeller
A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...
s; the rudders were also streamlined. The new machinery succeeded in increasing each ship's
nominal horsepower
Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are the ...
by 25% and increased their speed to about .
''Asturias'' was converted first, going to Belfast in May 1934 and returning to service in October. Only after ''Asturias'' had successfully completed a voyage from Southampton to Rio de Janeiro and back did RMSP send ''Alcantara'' to Harland and Wolff at Belfast in November. She returned to service in May 1935.
Each ship had two funnels, of which the forward one was a dummy. As built the funnels were low, which was a fashion for some 1920s and '30s motor ships. When the ships were re-engined in 1934 each funnel was increased in height.
Second World War service
In 1939 the
Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
*Admiralty, Hong Kong
*Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964
*The rank of admiral
*Admiralty law
Admiralty can also refer to:
Buildings
* Admiralty, Traf ...
requisitioned ''Alcantara'' and ''Asturias'' and had each ship converted into an armed merchant cruiser. The mainmast and forward dummy funnel of each ship were removed to increase the arc of fire for their
anti-aircraft
Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...
guns.
''Alcantara'' was sent to
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
for further modifications, but ''en route'' she had a major collision with the
Cunard
Cunard () is a British shipping and cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its three ships have been registered in Hamilton, Bermu ...
ship . As a result, ''Alcantara'' continued to
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
for hull repairs. The beds from ''Alcantara'' were sent to Malta, installed in Admiralty House and used for bombed out civilians and naval staff.
On 28 July 1940 ''Alcantara'' encountered the German in the South Atlantic. With her steam turbines ''Alcantara'' made for four hours to chase ''Thor'', and two shells from ''Alcantara''s
six-inch main guns hit the German ship. But three shells from ''Thor'' hit ''Alcantara'' and one flooded her engine room. This forced ''Alcantara'' to reduce speed, enabling ''Thor'' to escape.
In 1943 ''Alcantara'' was converted into a troop ship.
Final years and artefacts
![Żabbar Alcantara panels](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/%C5%BBabbar_Alcantara_panels.JPG)
''Alcantara'' remained a troop ship well after the end of the war, and did not return to civilian service until October 1948. ''Asturias'' remained in UK Government service as an emigrant ship, and ''Alcantara'' resumed their route between Southampton and South America, together with . In April 1958 she was withdrawn from service and sold to Japanese shipbreakers who renamed her ''Kaisho Maru'', took her to Japan and broke her up in the same year.
As part of the conversion to an auxiliary ship, mahogany wood panelling in the lobby was removed and stored in order to be replaced after the war. Eventually, the panels were not reused but were sold to the
Parish Church of Our Lady of Graces in
Żabbar
Żabbar ( mt, Ħaż-Żabbar, ), also known as Città Hompesch, is a city in the South Eastern Region of Malta. It is the sixth largest city in the country, with a population of 15,404 as of March 2014. Originally a part of Żejtun, Żabbar was gr ...
,
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
, where they were used as the platform for the 1951 titular painting coronation ceremony. The panels are now in the
Żabbar Sanctuary Museum
The Żabbar Sanctuary Museum ( mt, Mużew tas-Santwarju Żabbar) is the Parish museum of Żabbar, Malta, consisting of artifacts spanning from prehistory to modern contemporary. The majority of the belongings have a religious theme, while others a ...
.
References
Sources and further reading
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External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alcantara (1927)
1926 ships
World War II Auxiliary cruisers of the Royal Navy
Maritime incidents in July 1940
Ocean liners of the United Kingdom
Passenger ships of the United Kingdom
Ships built by Harland and Wolff
Ships built in Belfast
Steam turbine-powered ships
Troop ships of the United Kingdom