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OTWAY (1909)
Service dates: 1909-1917
Official number: 128282
Shipping lines: ORIENT STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY LTD.; ANDERSON, ANDERSON & COMPANY; ORIENT LINE
Ship type:
Passenger Liner.
Career
- 21.11.1908
- Launched by Mrs Frederick Green, wife of one of Orient Line’s managers.
- 29.05.1909
- Delivered as Otway for Orient Steam Navigation Company. Named after Cape Otway on the coast of Victoria, north-west of Melbourne. With the earlier Orsova and later Osterley, Otway made up the first trio of 12,000 ton vessels built when Orient Steam’s partners, Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, withdrew from the Australian run.
- 09.07.1909
- Maiden sailing from Tilbury. She made 17 mail voyages to Australia.
- 07.1914
- Orient Line turned down Admiralty request to charter Otway as a hospital ship.
- 23.11.1914
- Taken over by the Admiralty and converted into an armed merchant cruiser with four 4.7-inch guns. As a unit of the Tenth Cruiser Squadron she patrolled from the Skerries and the Shetlands to Iceland and Norway.
- 10.03.1915
- Intercepted Norwegian-America liner Bergensfjord carrying 17 German nationals under Norwegian passports.
- 07.1915
- Fire in the blacksmith’s shop followed by a refit at Birkenhead during which she had another fire on the bridge on 28th September 1915.
- 16.10.1915
- Assisted attempted salvage of Norwegian steamer Corona which had sprung a leak, but after 2 hours she was sunk by the AMC HMS Holdebrand as a danger to navigation.
- 03.01.1916
- Dry-docked for two weeks at Birkenhead after a collision with the anchored steamer Dominion.
- 18.11.1916
- Boarded Norwegian steamer Older to find a 9-strong German prize crew from a U-boat aboard. They had taken her over on 13th November and were heading for Kiel with a cargo of Welsh coal, and attempted to sink the ship with bombs and by opening the seacocks. 22 crew of the Older were released, as well as 25 from the Italian steamer Lela and 8 from the British trawler Hatsuse which had both been sunk by the submarine.
- 09.04.1917
- Stood by Norwegian steamer Augusta for 2 days, until she foundered.
- 22.07.1917
- Torpedoed and sunk northwest of St. Kilda by the minelaying submarine UC49. Ten ratings were killed in the explosion, the remainder taking to the boats and being rescued by destroyers.