White Star Line
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Laurentic (II)

The White Star Liner Laurentic was built on a fixed contract basis which made her the only White Star Liner not to be built on the cost plus basis by Harland and Wolff.

Laurentic was also the last liner who sailed on the north Atlantic route to be a coal burning, triple expansion steamer. As by that time oil was rapidly taking over coal for the ships.

She was launched on 16th June 1927 and she started her maiden voyage on 12th November 1927 from Liverpool – New York .

Starting from the 27th April 1928 she sailed on the Liverpool – Quebec – Montreal service.

In May 1934 the former rivals Cunard and White Star merged together and Laurentic become part of the new Cunard White Star fleet.

On 18th August 1935 while being used as a cruise ship Laurentic collided with the Napier Star of the Blue Star Line in heavy fog while steaming through the Irish Sea . Six of her crew members were killed. Laurentic returned home and was repaired but except for a few voyages in 1935 she was mostly laid up until the Second World War.

On 24th August 1939 she become an armed merchant cruiser and she remained in that job until she was torpedoed and sank by U99, on 3rd November 1940, off the Bloody Foreland, with the loss of 49 people.


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