SS ''Norwich City'' was an oil-fired steam freighter powered by a

triple expansion steam engine A compound steam engine unit is a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages. A typical arrangement for a compound engine is that the steam is first expanded in a high-pressure ''(HP)'' cylinder, then having given up he ...

History

She was built in 1911 by William Gray & Company, Ltd., West Hartlepool, England, with engines by the company's Central Marine Engine Works. On 23 or 24 April 1928 (sources differ), the ship ran into the

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, and lost her

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and masts.

Wreck

In November 1929, ''Norwich City'', carrying a crew of 35, left

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bound for

via

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

. During a storm on 29 November, the unladen freighter ran aground in darkness on the reef at the northwest end of the small central Pacific

atoll An atoll () is a ring-shaped island, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon partially or completely. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim. Atolls are located in warm tropical or subtropical oceans and seas where corals can gr ...

known as

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. A fire broke out in the engine room, and all hands abandoned ship in darkness, having to make their way across the wide and dangerous coral reef being pounded by dangerous storm waves. In total, 11 men died. The survivors camped near collapsed structures from a late 19th-century coconut-planting project and were rescued after several days on the island. The devastated wreck of the ''Norwich City'' was a prominent landmark on the reef for 70 years, though by 2007, only the ship's keel, engine, and two large tanks remained. By 2010, only the engine remained above water on the reef. In 2016, storm activity washed one of the two large tanks shoreward and the two-story engine was broken off and dropped over the edge of the reef into deep water.TIGHAR Earhart Project Research Bulletin #80
January 9, 2017.

References

External links

Photo
of SS ''Norwich City'' taken about twenty months before the shipwreck
Historical record of SS ''Norwich City''
of what was left of the wreckage in 2007 * http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Norwich_City/NorwichCity.html Reports from the Board of Trade's Inquiry into the Wreck of the Norwich City {{DEFAULTSORT:Norwich City, SS Steamships Cargo ships of the United Kingdom Shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean Archaeology of shipwrecks 1911 ships Maritime incidents in 1928 Maritime incidents in 1929

History

Wreck

See also

References

External links