Yard number 765 Draught 15.8 feet (4.8 m) Length 87 m Beam 12 m | Fate Sunk 12 September 1918 Launched 1910 Draft 4.82 m Builder Cammell Laird | |
Name 1910-1914SS Sarnia
1914-1918HMS Sarnia Operator London and South Western Railway Tonnage 1,498 gross register tons (GRT) | ||
TrSS Sarnia was a passenger vessel built for the London and South Western Railway in 1910. During the First World War, she served in the Royal Navy as the armed boarding steamer HMS Sarnia.
History
Sarnia was built by Cammell Laird in Birkenhead, England, and launched in 1910. She was one of a pair of ships ordered by the London and South Western Railway, the other being Caesarea. They were the first turbine steamers ordered by the railway company. They were deployed on the route to the Channel Islands for a few years until the outbreak of the First World War.
The Admiralty requisitioned her during the First World War for use by the Royal Navy and reconfigured her as the armed boarding steamer HMS Sarnia. On 28 October 1915 she collided with the auxiliary minesweeper HMS Hythe in the Dardanelles; Hythe sank with the loss of 154 lives.
The Imperial German Navy submarine SM U-65 sank Sarnia in the Mediterranean Sea off Alexandria, Egypt, (31°58′N 30°55′E) on 12 September 1918 with the loss of 55 crew.