Maiden voyage 30 March 1882 Tonnage 3,616 gross Length 110 m Builder Govan | Type Ocean liner Launched 21 December 1881 Beam 14 m | |
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Name Aberdeen (1881)
Halep (1906) Owner Aberdeen Line (1881)
Ottoman Empire (1906) Fate Torpedoed 25 August 1915 | ||
SS Aberdeen was a British cargo liner; the first ship to be successfully powered by a triple expansion steam engine. She ended her career as a Turkish troopship in World War I and was sunk by a British submarine in 1915.
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Design and construction
Aberdeen was designed as the first steamship in the fleet of the Aberdeen Line, intended for high speed service between the United Kingdom and Australia and the Far East. She was constructed at Govan in the shipyard of Robert Napier and Sons on Clydeside, Scotland. The senior partner at Napier's was Alexander Carnegie Kirk, a talented engineer who had experimentally fitted the world's first "triple expansion" compound steam engine to the SS Propontis in 1874. In Aberdeen, Kirk installed a refined version of his engine, resulting in a ship that has been described as "one of the masterpieces of British shipbuilding". This ship proved the advantages of the new type of engine, which would continue to power major vessels throughout the world for the next seventy years.
Aberdeen had clipper bows and three barque-rigged masts. There was accommodation for 45 first and 650 third class passengers.
British service, 1882-1906
Aberdeen began her maiden voyage on 30 March 1882, which was to Cape Town, Melbourne and Sydney. She was modernised in 1892 and again in 1896, when electric light and refrigeration were installed. Her last voyage with the Aberdeen Line was to Sydney and started on 19 December 1905.
Turkish service, 1906-1915
In 1906, she was sold to the Turkish government and renamed SS Halep. She was employed as a troopship and a ferry on the Black Sea. On 25 August 1915, she was torpedoed by the Royal Navy submarine HMS E11, at the Akbas Jetty in Canakkale harbour. It is estimated that two hundred of the crew and soldiers on board were killed. She was later refloated and subsequently broken-up.