''Dieppe'' was a

steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

passenger ferry that was built in 1905 for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. She was requisitioned during the First World War for use as a troopship and later as a hospital ship HMS ''Dieppe'', returning to her owners postwar. She passed to the Southern Railway on 1 January 1923. In 1933 she was sold to W E Guinness and converted to a private diesel yacht, ''Rosaura''. She was requisitioned in the Second World War for use as an armed boarding vessel, HMS ''Rosaura''. She struck a

mine Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging * Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun ...

and sank off Tobruk, Libya on 18 March 1941.

Description

The ship was built by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co Ltd, Govan. She was yard number 439 and was launched on 6 April 1905 with completion in May 1905. The ship was long, with a beam of and a depth of . She was powered by three

steam turbine 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 ...

s, which were made by Fairfield. The turbines could propel her at a speed of . When converted to a private yacht, the turbines were replaced by two 8-cylinder Atlas

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 ...

. One of her propellers was removed as was one of her funnels. Her speed was reduced to . As built, her GRT was 1,210. This had increased to 1,426 by 1930, and further increased to 1,536 in 1933.

History

''Dieppe'' was built for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway. She was used on their

Newhaven Newhaven may refer to: Places * Newhaven, Derbyshire, England, a hamlet *Newhaven, East Sussex, England, a port town * Newhaven, Edinburgh, Scotland *Newhaven Sanctuary, Northern Territory, Australia *Newhaven, Victoria, Australia Other uses *Ne ...

— Dieppe route. She was requisitioned by the Royal Navy in the First World War for use as a troopship and a hospital ship. On 27 February 1916 she took aboard over 100 survivors from the P&O passenger liner , which was sunk by a mine off

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

. ''Dieppe'' was returned to her owners after the war and passed to the Southern Railway at

1923 grouping The Railways Act 1921 (c. 55), also known as the Grouping Act, was an Act of Parliament enacted by the British government and intended to stem the losses being made by many of the country's 120 railway companies, by "grouping" them into four la ...

. On 27 November 1924 ''Dieppe'' had a mishap in which she ended up hitting the breakwater at Newhaven Harbour stern first. The

tugs A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, suc ...

''Alert'' and ''Richmere'' were sent to her aid. ''Richmere'' became disabled when a cable became entangled around her propeller. The Newhaven lifeboat ''Sir Fitzroy Clayton'' was sent to her aid. ''Richmere'' ended up being dashed against the harbour wall and sank. Her crew were rescued by the lifeboat and the tug was later raised and repaired. ''Dieppe'' managed to dock some five hours after the drama began. In September 1933, ''Dieppe'' was sold to W E Guinness for conversion to a private yacht. She was renamed ''Rosaura'', replacing which had been lost earlier that year. In August 1934, the Prince of Wales and Wallis Simpson took a cruise on ''Rosaura''. According to Wallis, it was on this cruise that she fell in love with the Prince. Also in 1934,

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...

and his wife Clementine cruised on ''Rosaura'' in the eastern Mediterranean. On 26 September 1936, ''Rosaura'' was in collision with the Dutch coaster at Amsterdam, Netherlands and was severely damaged. She was subsequently repaired. ''Rosaura'' was requisitioned by the Royal Navy in the Second World War for use as an armed boarding vessel in the Contraband Control Service. In February 1941, ''Rosaura'' was involved in Operation Abstention. On 18 March 1941 ''Rosaura'' struck a

off Tobruk and sank, claiming the lives of 78 people.

Official number and code letters

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 ...

s were a forerunner to IMO Numbers. ''Dieppe'' and ''Rosaura'' had the UK Official Number 105655. ''Dieppe'' used the

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 ...

HCRB.

Legacy

The yacht ''Rosaura'' is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of Honduran gecko, '' Sphaerodactylus rosaurae''.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Rosaura", p. 226).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dieppe 1905 ships Ships built on the River Clyde Hospital ships in World War I Hospital ships of the Royal Navy Maritime incidents in 1924 Maritime incidents in 1936 Maritime incidents in March 1941 Merchant ships of the United Kingdom Ships of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Ships of the Southern Railway (UK) Ships sunk by mines Steamships of the United Kingdom Troop ships of the Royal Navy World War II shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea