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POONAH (1863)
Service dates: 1863-1889
Official number: 45786
Shipping lines: P&O STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY
Ship type:
Passenger Liner.
Career
- 08.11.1862
- Launched.
- 23.02.1863
- Registered.
- 11.04.1863
- Ran trials at Stokes Bay and delivered as Poonah for The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. Poonah is an antique English spelling of Pune, a town in the Bombay presidency of British India, now in Maharashtra state.
- 20.04.1863
- Maiden voyage to Alexandria.
- 21.02.1867
- Engine breakdown leaving Alexandria for Marseille. Transferred mails and passengers to Euxine.
- 28.02.1867
- Towed by Pera from Alexandria to Malta arriving 4th March.
- 09.03.1867
- Left Malta under her own power.
- 23.03.1867
- Arrived in London for refit.
- 02.11.1867
- Arrived at Southampton after refit. Returned to Mediterranean service.
- 08.1875
- Lengthened to 126.11m (413.9ft) by James Laing, Sunderland and fitted with new compound engines developing 2,590 ihp by R & W Hawthorn, Newcastle. Tonnages now 3,044 gross, 1,685 net, deadweight 1,650 tons, passenger capacity now 200 first class, 50 second class. She came from the yard with a pronounced curve in her keel, by virtue of which she had to be specially blocked whenever she was in dry-dock thereafter.
- 18.08.1875
- Re-registered at Sunderland, UK.
- 1875
- On one voyage to Australia the celebrated tightrope-walker Blondin walked between the main and mizzen masts while Poonah was at sea, although due to heavy seas he had to sit down five times.
- 1881
- Laid up in London for 6 months.
- 1883
- Laid up in London again.
- 11.1884/09.1885
- Four trooping voyages to Malta, Cyprus and Alexandria.
- 21.02.1885
- Broke her shaft in the entrance to the English Channel. Attempts to tow her by the tug Mount Etna failed in heavy weather, but she was ultimately towed into Queenstown by the tug Commodore.
- 04.10.1885
- Trooping voyage to South Africa.
- 01.1886
- Two trooping voyages to Egypt.
- 07.1889
- Sold at auction in London for £5,231 to Eugenio and Enrico Arbib, London.
- 06.1892
- Sold to shipbreakers at Sunderland.