RMS Strathaird

RMS, later SS, "Strathaird" was the first of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company Strath class ocean liners. She was built at Vickers-Armstrong, Barrow-in-Furness, then in Lancashire, and launched on 18 July 1931. She remained in service for less than 30 years, being scrapped in 1961.

History

"Strathaird" was built just before the "Strathnaver" and the two ships were the first P&O liners to be painted with white hulls and yellow funnels, [Cite web
url = http://www.ssmaritime.com/strathaird.htm
title = P&O RMS Strathaird
accessdate = 2007-12-20
publisher = SS Maritime] and nicknamed The White Sisters. [Cite web
url = http://www.poships.co.uk/thewhitesisters.html
title = The White Sisters
accessdate = 2007-12-20
publisher = The Ocean Liner Virtual Museum This site maintains that "Strathnaver" was the first built, and "Strathaird" the second, but no other sites that were consulted agree. ] There were three funnels, though the first and third were dummies and were removed in the refit in 1947 that followed her service in the Second World War.

"Strathaird's" maiden voyage was on the mail run from Tilbury to Sydney through the Suez Canal and this remained her route until the war. In December 1932, "Strathaird" was the first P&O ship to operate a cruise, when she took a five-day excursion from Sydney to Norfolk Island; later in the 1930s she was also used on occasion for cruises from UK ports.

Two further Strath class ships, slightly larger and with only one funnel, the "Strathmore" and the "Stratheden", joined "Strathaird" and "Strathnaver" on the Sydney run from the mid 1930s. A fifth ship, the "Strathallan", was completed in 1938, requisitioned as a troopship only a year later, and sunk in the Mediterranean in 1942 taking troops to the landings in North Africa, though with more than 5,000 people on board casualties are thought to have numbered only a dozen or so. [Cite web
url = http://www.thestrathallan.com/strathallan.htm
title = The Strathallan Story
accessdate = 2007-12-20]

On wartime service from 1939 to the end of 1946, "Strathaird" was used to take troops from Australasia to the Middle East. During a refit in Liverpool, she was also used in the evacuation of troops from Brest, in France.

"Strathaird" was extensively refitted in 1947 for the resumption of her P&O career: the dummy funnels were removed and the numbers of first-class passengers increased, with a drop in the number of tourist-class passengers. [Cite web
url = http://www.ssmaritime.com/strathaird.htm
title = P&O RMS Strathaird
accessdate = 2007-12-20
publisher = SS Maritime] One of her early duties on her return to civilian tasks was to bring the 1948 Australian cricket team, also known as The Invincibles, to England. A further refit in the early 1950s accompanied a downgrade in status which saw the ship converted to a single class.

Increasing unreliability of the older pair of Strath liners led P&O to propose a new single ship, the SS "Canberra", that would replace both of them. "Strathaird's" final outward journey from Tilbury was on 28 March, 1961 and her return voyage departed from Sydney on 9 May, 1961. She left Tilbury finally on 17 June, 1961 for a breaker's yard in Hong Kong. [Cite web
url = http://www.ssmaritime.com/strathaird.htm
title = P&O RMS Strathaird
accessdate = 2007-12-20
publisher = SS Maritime]

External links

* [http://www.ssmaritime.com/strathaird.htm "Strathaird" at SS Maritime]
* [http://www.ozhoo.net.au/~strathsisters/strathaird/index.htm Strathaird fan-site with pictures]

References