Mar Negro
MV Mar Negro
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| History | |
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 Spain
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| Name: | Mar Negro |
| Namesake: | Black Sea |
| Owner: | Compañía Marítima Del Nervión |
| Builder: | Euskalduna of Bilbao |
| Launched: | 1930 |
| Fate: | Requisitioned by the Spanish Republican Navy, 1937 |
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| Operator: | Spanish Nationalist navy |
| Builder: | SECN |
| Commissioned: | 20 May 1938 |
| Out of service: | 19 October 1939 |
| Reclassified: | Auxiliary cruiser, 1937 |
| Fate: | Returned to original owner |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 6,632 tn |
| Length: | 123.39 m (404.8 ft) |
| Beam: | 16.61 m (54.5 ft) |
| Draught: | 7.8 m (26 ft) |
| Propulsion: | 2x6cyl Diesel; 7,600 hp (5,670 kW) |
| Speed: | 15-knot (28 km/h) |
| Range: | 60,000 nmi (110,000 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h) |
| Armament: |
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The Auxiliary cruiser Mar Negro was an armed merchantman of the Nationalist Spanish navy during the Spanish Civil War. The cargo ship was launched in 1930 along with her sister ship Mar Cantábrico, and after five years on the Compañía Marítima Del Nervión company, she was first requisitioned by the Spanish Republican Navy in 1936. Captured by a group of Nationalist sympathizers from her crew off Algeria in 1937, she entered in service in 1938 after being converted to an auxiliary cruiser.
The Mar Negro was built in 1930 along with her sister ship. She was a 6,632-ton motor vessel and was part of a series of four ships of different tonnage. Two of them were 4,700-ton steamers (Mar Blanco and Mar Caribe), while Mar Negro and Mar Cantábrico were propelled by two diesel engines. The merchantmen were owned by the Compañía Marítima del Nervión, based at Bilbao. The cargo vessels were engaged in trade between Spain and United States ports at the Gulf of Mexico. Both of them ended up as auxiliary cruisers of the Nationalist navy.
At the beginning of the war in 1936, Mar Negro was moored at Barcelona, a city which remained under the control of the Government. She was fitted out as a troop transport, and was one of the Republican ships which took part of the abortive landing on Mallorca on August 1936. Months later, she became involved in the maritime traffic between the Soviet Union and the Spanish Republic, and survived the attack of an Italian submarine.
In September 1937, the ship, bound to Barcelona from Odessa, was diverted by her captain and part of the crew towards Cagliari, Sardinia, where the Nationalist had an improvised naval base with the support of Fascist Italy. After seeing some activity as a supply ship, the merchant was converted into a naval unit at the same shipyard where she and her sister had been built, the SECN facilities on the Nervion river, near Bilbao. She was equipped with four 152 mm Vickers main guns, four 88 mm, four 47 mm Armstrong, three 20 mm Scotti and three depth-charge launchers.
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Wikipedia