Ruysdael (II) 1912 np

Ruysdael 1912

3478 tons

104.5 LPP x 14.9m

1xTriple expansion engine

Wm Gray & Co Ltd, West Hartlepool

Yard No 800

LAUNCH AT WEST HARTLEPOOL

Northern Daily Mail, Nov 22/11

Yesterday, Messrs. William Gray and Company. Limited launched the handsome steel screw steamer, Ruysdael, for Messrs. the Bolton Steam Shipping Company, Ltd., London.

She will take the highest class in Lloyd’s Register, and is of the following dimensions, viz. : Length over all, 345ft.6in, breadth, 49ft., and depth, 25ft. 5in., with long bridge, poop, and top-gallant forecastle. The saloon, staterooms, captain’s, officers, and engineers’ rooms, etc., will be fitted up in houses on the bridge deck, and the crew’s berths in the forecastle.

The hull is built with deep bulb-angle frames dispensing with hold beams, and leaving large clear holds, cellular double bottom, and large fore peak and after peak ballast tanks, eight steam winches, steam steering gear amidships, hand screw gear aft, patent direct steam windlass, large horizontal multitubular donkey boiler, shifting boards throughout, boats on deck overhead, stockless anchors, telescopic masts, with fore and aft rig, and all requirements for a first class cargo steamer.

Triple-expansion engines are being supplied by the Central Marine Engineering Works of the builders, having cylinders 24 ½ in., 40in., and 65in., with a piston stroke of 42in., and two large steel boilers for a working pressure of 180lbs. per square inch.

The ship and machinery have been constructed under the superintendence of Mr. J. S. Bounyman, on behalf of the owners, and the ceremony of naming the steamer Ruysdael was gracefully performed by Miss Bolton, daughter of Sir Frederic and Lady Bolton, the latter being present with her daughter.

TRIAL TRIP OF THE s.s. RUYSDAEL

Northern Daily Mail, Jan 4/12

This handsome steel screw steamer built by Messrs. William Gray and Co. for Messrs. The Bolton Steam Shipping Company, Ltd., London, was taken for her trial trip.

The vessel has been built to the highest class in Lloyd’s Register, and is of the following dimensions, viz.: Length over all, 345ft.6in, breadth, 49ft., and depth, 25ft. 5in.

Triple-expansion engines have been supplied from the Central Marine Engineering Works  (see also) of the builders, having cylinders 24 ½ in., 40in., and 65in., with a piston stroke of 42in., and two large steel boilers for a working pressure of 180lbs. per square inch. An evaporator, duplex pumps and other auxiliaries of the “C.M.E.W” make have also been supplied.

The owners were represented by Mr. E. Glover, Mr F. W. Bolton and Mr. J. S. Bounyman, the latter gentleman having superintended the construction of ship and machinery. Mr. James Innes was present on behalf of Lloyd’s Registry.

After a few preliminary manoeuvres, the vessel was taken to the Tyne to load, her performance on the passage being quite satisfactory to all concerned.

At the outbreak of war she was laid up in the neutral Finnish port of Kristinestad, in the Gulf of Bothnia, until November 1916. Under the command of Capt. R. Hurford and in the company of some other British ships, she then managed to slip through the shelter of Swedish territorial waters out of the Baltic into the Kattegat, through the Skagerrak, to escape home across the North Sea.

On her arrival in England she was then sold.

1916 sold to A.D. Axarlis, London but not renamed

1918 sold to Watkin J. Williams, Cardiff

1918 7th Sept while en-route from Barry to Taranto with a cargo of coal, she was torpedoed and sunk N.W. of Finisterre by the German submarine U-105 at 46.53N 10.07W (228 miles west of the Ushant), becoming one of the last casualties of the war.

12 casualties including the master W. Steel.

Lives Lost

Masters: 1915-17 R Hirlford: 1918 W Steel.

Lives lost September 1918: 

Baskett, George Charles, 2nd engineer, 51, b. Madras, resided Cardiff

Bates, Alfred George, wireless operator, 19, b. St Pancras, London

Boulton, Joseph Henry, fireman/trimmer, 57, b. Portsmouth, resided Barry Island, Glamorgan

Boulton, John Stevens, fireman/trimmer, 30, b. St. Ives

Dalton, Martin, 2nd steward, 22, Barry, Glamorgan

Jones, James David, fireman/trimmer, 23, b. Cardiff, resided Barry Dock, Glamorgan

Jones, William, 2nd mate, 66, Borth Cardiganshire 

Morgan, Thomas John, carpenter, 23, b. Trehafod, Glamorgan

Sinclair, W, able seaman, 62, b. Shetland

Stack, William, able seaman, 43, Castletown Bere, Co. Cork

Steel, W, master, 36, Scarborough

Watson, George, fireman/trimmer, 45, b. County Cork

Footnote:

The U-105 surrendered at the end of the War and became the French submarine Jean Autric.