SS Abukir
| History | |
|---|---|
  United Kingdom, Egypt
|
|
| Name: |
|
| Namesake: | Abu Qir, Egypt |
| Owner: |
|
| Operator: |
|
| Port of registry: |
|
| Builder: | Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson, Wallsend |
| Yard number: | 1159 |
| Launched: | 27 September 1920 |
| Completed: | November 1920 |
| Identification: |
|
| Fate: | sunk by torpedo, 28 May 1940 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | coaster |
| Tonnage: | |
| Length: | 173.5 ft (52.9 m) |
| Beam: | 28.1 ft (8.6 m) |
| Draught: | 13 ft 5 in (4.09 m) |
| Depth: | 12.9 ft (3.9 m) |
| Installed power: | 97 Rated Horsepower |
| Propulsion: | 3-cylinder triple-expansion steam engine; single screw |
| Speed: | 8 knots (15 km/h) |
| Armament: | (as DEMS) 1 Lewis gun |
| Armour: | concrete slabs to protect the bridge from machine-gun fire |
SS Abukir was a British coastal steamship that was launched in 1920 as SS Island Queen and renamed in 1934 as SS Kyle Queen. In 1935 she was renamed Abukir and registered in Egypt. In May 1940 she was torpedoed and sunk in the North Sea while evacuating UK and Belgian soldiers, airmen and civilians from Ostend on the last day of the Battle of Belgium.
Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson built the ship at Wallsend on the River Tyne in north-east England, completing her in November 1920. She had three corrugated furnaces with a combined grate area of 58 square feet (5 m2) that heated one single-ended boiler with a heating surface of 1,775 square feet (165 m2). This fed steam at 180 lbf/in2 to a three-cylinder triple expansion steam engine of 97 Rated Horsepower (RHP) that drove a single screw.
She was built as Island Queen for the London and Channel Islands Steamship Company, which appointed Cheesewright and Ford of London to manage her. In 1934 London and Channel Islands sold the ship to Monroe Brothers of Liverpool, who renamed her Kyle Queen. In 1935 Monroe Brothers sold her to the Khedivial Mail Steamship and Graving Dock Company of Alexandria, which operated ships and docks for the Kingdom of Egypt. The company, which traded as the Khedivial Mail Line (KML), renamed the ship Abukir after the coastal town of Abu Qir on the edge of the Nile delta and registered her in Alexandria. In 1936 the company was reconstituted as the Pharaonic Mail Line, but continued trading as the KML.
On 22 March 1939 Abukir ran aground at Larnaca, Cyprus. She was refloated six days later.
...
Wikipedia