HMHS Britannic

His Majesty's Hospital Ship (HMHS) Britannic
History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMHS Britannic
Owner:	White Star Line
Operator:	Royal Navy
Port of registry:	Liverpool, United Kingdom
Builder:	Harland and Wolff, Belfast
Yard number:	433
Laid down:	30 November 1911
Launched:	26 February 1914
Completed:	12 December 1915
In service:	23 December 1915 (hospital ship)
Out of service:	21 November 1916
Fate:	Sank after an explosion on 21 November 1916 near Kea in the Aegean Sea.
Status:	Wrecked
General characteristics
Class and type:	Olympic-class ocean liner
Tonnage:	48,158 gross register tons
Displacement:	53,200 tons
Length:	882 ft 9 in (269.06 m)
Beam:	94 ft (28.7 m)
Height:	175 ft (53 m) from the keel to the top of the funnels
Draught:	34 ft 7 in (10.5 m)
Depth:	64 ft 6 in
Decks:	9 passenger decks
Installed power:	24 double-ended, 5 single-ended (coal-fired) boilers Two four-cylinder triple-expansion reciprocating engines, each producing 16,000 hp (12,000 kW) for outboard wing propellers, one low-pressure turbine producing 18,000 hp (13,000 kW) for the centre propeller Total 50,000 hp (37,000 kW)
Propulsion:	Two bronze triple-blade outboard wing propellers One bronze quadruple-blade central propeller
Speed:	21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph) 23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph) (maximum)
Capacity:	3309 wounded

HMHS Britannic (/brɪˈtænɪk/) was the third of the White Star Line's Olympic class of vessels. She was the sister ship of RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic, and was intended to enter service as the transatlantic passenger liner, RMS Britannic. The White Star Line used Britannic as the name of two other ships: SS Britannic (1874), holder of the Blue Riband, and MV Britannic (1929), a motor liner, owned by White Star and then Cunard, scrapped in 1960.

Britannic was launched just before the start of the First World War and was laid up at her builders, Harland and Wolff, in Belfast for many months before being put to use as a hospital ship in 1915. She was shaken by an explosion, caused by an underwater mine, in the Kea Channel off the Greek island of Kea on the morning of 21 November 1916, and sank 55 minutes later, killing 30 people.