SS ''Waesland'' was a
Cunard liner built by J & G Thomson of Glasgow as ''Russia''. She was launched 20 March 1867 and made her maiden voyage in June of the same year. The writer
Charles Dickens returned to
England on the ''Russia'' after his second tour of the
United States and was fulsome in his praise of the ship.
On 25 May 1869, ''Russia'' ran into the ship ''Figlia Maggiore'' of
Trieste off
Bedloes Island
Liberty Island is a federally owned island in Upper New York Bay in the United States. Its most notable feature is the Statue of Liberty (''Liberty Enlightening the World''), a large statue by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi that was dedicated i ...
,
New York City, which sank without loss of life.
She was sold to the
Red Star Line in 1880 and renamed ''Waesland''. Red Star replaced her engine with a
compound engine which, in 1889, was replaced in turn with a
triple expansion engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be tr ...
. In 1895 she was chartered to the
American Line
The American Line was a shipping company founded in 1871 and based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It began as part of the Pennsylvania Railroad, although the railroad got out of the shipping business soon after founding the company. In 1902, it ...
for use on their services to
Philadelphia. In 1902 she was in collision with the ''Harmonides'', formerly the ''Woolloomooloo'' of Lund's Blue Anchor Line, off the coast of
Anglesey and sank with the loss of two lives.
For many years a painting of the ''Russia'' hung in the
London offices of Cunard.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Waesland, SS
Victorian-era passenger ships of the United Kingdom
Passenger ships of the United States
Ships of the Cunard Line
Ships built on the River Clyde
1867 ships
Maritime incidents in 1902
Shipwrecks in the Irish Sea
Ships sunk in collisions