miscellaneous
Monday, April 25, 2011
LUIGI ROBERTO - SS STELLA
I had time last night to do some research on this particular steamship. She was built at the J. and G. Thompson's Clydebank yard , launched on Sept 18, 1890 and completed later that year. Sister ships were Frederica and Lydia. She was 253 feet long and had a beam of 35 feet. Her two triple expansion steam engines could attain a speed of 19.5 knots.
She was built for the London and Southwestern Railroads as a ferry for the Southampton and Channel Islands Services and was on a run to Guernsey March 30, 1899 when she ran onto the Casquets Reef in foggy conditions and sank in less than 10 minutes with considerable loss of life. As was often the case at that time, there were insufficient seats in life boats to assure a place for all. Various reports of loss of life range from the low 70's to around 100. An eerie forerunner of the loss of Titanic 13 years later due to Captain's error in maintaining full speed in unfavourable conditions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Stella
http://www.jakesimpkin.org/ArticlesResearch/SSStellaDisaster/tabid/62/Default.aspx
http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/SR_LSWR1.html#anchor1508101
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