SS Imo

SS ''Imo'' was a merchant steamship that was built in 1889 to carry livestock and passengers, and converted in 1912 into a whaling factory ship. She was built as ''Runic'', renamed ''Tampican'' in 1895, ''Imo'' in 1912 and ''Guvernøren'' in 1920.

In 1917 the Belgian Relief Commission chartered ''Imo'' to take humanitarian supplies to German-occupied Belgium. On 6 December 1917 she was involved in a collision in Halifax Harbour with the French cargo ship , which was carrying munitions. The resultant fire aboard ''Mont Blanc'' caused the historic and catastrophic Halifax Explosion, which levelled the Richmond District in the North End of the city. Although ''Imo''s superstructure was severely damaged by the blast, the ship was repaired and returned to service in 1918.

The ship was renamed ''Guvernøren'' in 1920. On 30 Nevember 1921 she ran aground off the Falkland Islands and was abandoned.

Building and owners

Harland & Wolff built the ship in Belfast as yard number 211. She was launched on 1 January 1889 and completed on 16 February. She was designed to carry 1,000 head of live cattle, plus she had berths for 48 passengers. As built, her tonnages were and .

Her first owner was the Oceanic Steam Navigation Co, which was part of White Star Line. She was registered at Liverpool. Her United Kingdom official number was 93837 and her code letters were LBPW. In May 1895 the West Indies and Pacific Steamship Line acquired the ship and renamed her ''Tampican''. On 31 December 1899 she was transferred with the rest of the company's fleet to Frederick Leyland & Co.

In 1912 HE Moss acquired ''Tampican'', but in the same year he sold her on to the Southern Pacific Whaling Company, who had her refitted as a whaling factory ship. This changed her tonnages to and . She was renamed ''Imo'' and registered in Christiania (now Oslo), Norway. Her code letters were changed to MJGB.

Halifax Explosion

In 1917 ''Imo'' sailed as a charter for the Belgian Relief Commission. Being neutral, ''Imo'' said on her side the words "Belgian Relief" to protect her from German and Austro-Hungarian submarines. ''Imo'' was sailing in ballast (empty) en route to New York to load relief supplies. She reached Halifax on 3 December for neutral inspection, and spent two days in Bedford Basin awaiting bunkering. She was cleared to leave port on 5 December, but was delayed as her bunker coal did not arrive until late that afternoon. Bunkering was not completed until after the anti-submarine nets had been raised for the night, so she could not weigh anchor until the next morning.

''Imo'' had a crew of 39 men, commanded by Captain Haakon From. With a registered length of but a beam of only , ''Imo'' was long and narrow. Because she was in ballast (without cargo), her propeller and rudder were nearly out of the water, making her hard to steer. She was powered by a triple-expansion steam engine with a single 20-foot right-hand propeller, able to make 60 revolutions per minute. Her propeller gave her a "transverse thrust", i.e. while making headway she veered to the left, in reverse she swung to the right. Under these conditions, ''Imo'' was at a disadvantage in navigating in tight quarters. "Due to the combined effect of transverse thrust and the length, and depth of ''SS Imo's'' hull, and its keel, she was difficult to maneuver".

The guard ship HMCS ''Acadia'' signalled ''Imo'' clearance to leave Bedford Basin by signals at about 7:30 A.M. on the morning of 6 December, with Pilot William Hayes aboard. ''Imo'' entered the Narrows well above the harbour's speed limit, in an attempt to make up for the delay from bunkering. ''Imo'' met a US tramp steamer, SS ''Clara'', being piloted up the wrong (western) side of the harbour. The pilots agreed to pass starboard to starboard. Soon afterwards, ''Imo'' was forced to head even further towards the Dartmouth shore after passing the tugboat , which was travelling up the harbour to Bedford Basin near mid-channel. Horatio Brannen, captain of ''Stella Maris'', saw ''Imo'' approaching at excessive speed and ordered his ship closer to the western shore to avoid an accident.

This incident forced ''Imo'' even further over towards the Dartmouth side of the harbour into the path of the on-coming ''Mont-Blanc'', a French cargo ship fully loaded with a highly volatile cargo of wartime explosives. Unable to ground his ship for fear of a shock that would set off his explosive cargo, Pilot Francis Mackey ordered ''Mont-Blanc'' to steer hard to port (starboard helm) and crossed the Norwegian ship's bows in a last-second bid to avoid a collision. The two ships were almost parallel to each other, when ''Imo'' suddenly sent out three signal blasts, indicating she was reversing her engine. The combination of the cargoless ship's height in the water and the transverse thrust of her right-hand propeller caused the ship's head to swing into ''Mont-Blanc''. At 8:45 A.M., the two ships collided at slow speed in The Narrows of Halifax Harbour.

While the damage to ''Mont Blanc'' was not severe, it toppled barrels that broke open and flooded the deck with benzol that quickly flowed into the hold. As ''Imo''s engine engaged, she quickly disengaged, which created sparks inside ''Mont-Blanc''s hull. These ignited the vapour from the benzol. A fire started at the water line and travelled quickly up the side of the ship as the benzol spewed out from crushed drums on ''Mont-Blanc''s decks. The fire quickly became uncontrollable. Surrounded by thick black smoke, and fearing she would explode almost immediately, the captain ordered the crew to abandon ship. At 9:04:35 A.M., the out-of-control fire aboard ''Mont-Blanc'' finally set off her highly explosive cargo. The ship was completely blown apart and a powerful blast wave radiated away from the explosion at more than per second. Temperatures of and pressures of thousands of atmospheres accompanied the moment of detonation at the centre of the explosion.

About 1,950 people were killed by debris, fires, or collapsed buildings, and it is estimated that more than 9,000 people were injured.CBC – Halifax Explosion 1917
/ref> The explosion wrecked the upper decks of ''Imo''. Three of the four personnel on her open bridge were killed: Captain From, Pilot William Hayes and R. Albert Ingvald Iverson, the First Officer. John Johansen, the helmsman, was severely injured but survived. Four other crewmen were also killed: Harold Iverson (seaman), Oscar Kallstrom (fireman), Johannes C. Kersenboom (carpenter) and Gustav Petersen (boatswain). The blast and the tsunami that followed threw the ship ashore on the Dartmouth side of Halifax Harbour.

The Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry carried out the official investigation into the cause of the collision. Charles Jost Burchell, a prominent Halifax lawyer, represented ''Imo's'' owners as he did in the lengthy civil litigation. The inquiry initially held ''Imo's'' crew blameless, and put the entire responsibility for the collision on the ''Mont-Blanc''. However following appeals to the Supreme Court of Canada in May 1919 and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on 22 March 1920, both ships were found to have made navigational errors and were found equally at fault for the collision and its consequences."Halifax Explosion Infosheet", ''Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, Halifax''

Later career

''Imo'' was refloated 26 April 1918, repaired and returned to service. Renamed ''Guvernøren'' ("The Governor") in 1920, she was a whale oil tanker until 30 November 1921, when the man at the helm collapsed drunk after celebratory drinking, leaving nobody at the wheel. The ship ran aground on rocks at Cow Bay two miles off Cape Carysfort about 20 miles from Port Stanley on East Falkland. No crew were lost. Salvage attempts were halted on 3 December and the ship was abandoned to the sea.

Stamp and commemoration

In 2005 the Falkland Islands issued a postage stamp showing ''Guvernøren''. The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia has an exhibit about the ship's role in the Halifax Explosion, which also displays some fittings from ''Imo'' including a dog collar from the ship's mascot.

On 6 November 2017, Canada Post issued a stamp commemorating the devastating explosion. Released one month before the blast's centenary, the issue also salutes the resilience of the Haligonians who rebuilt their city from the ashes.

The stamp captures the moments before and after the disaster through elements from the past and present. Local illustrator Mike Little and historical consultant Joel Zemel (who also wrote the descriptive text) recreated the scene based on archived historical materials including witness accounts from the inquiry. Because the ships' plans were not available at the time, three extant photographs of SS ''Mont-Blanc'', and several available images of ''Imo'' were used as the main references. An image of the front page of ''The Halifax Herald'' the day after the explosion shows the heartbreaking aftermath. The stamp was designed by Larry Burke and Anna Stredulinsky of Burke & Burke in Halifax.Canada Post

Footnotes

Bibliography

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External links

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HalifaxExplosion.net
features images and reading material related to the Halifax Explosion and the early RCN.

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1889 ships
Halifax Explosion ships
Maritime incidents in 1917
Maritime incidents in 1921
Ships built in Belfast
Ships built by Harland and Wolff
Ships of the White Star Line
Shipwrecks of the Nova Scotia coast
Shipwrecks of the Falkland Islands
Steamships of Norway
Steamships of the United Kingdom
Whaling ships
World War I merchant ships of Norway