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SS Mesaba was a British passenger and cargo ship of in operation between 1898 and 1918. She was torpedoed and sunk by 21nmi east of the Tuskar Rock in the Irish Sea on 1 September 1918 with the loss of 20 of her crew, while she was travelling from Liverpool, United Kingdom to Philadelphia, United States.[1]
She is best known as one of the ships that sent warnings of pack ice ahead to the (which never made it to that liner's bridge).
Mesaba was launched for the Atlantic Transport Line at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 11 September 1897, and completed on 17 February 1898. The ship was 146.9m (482feet) long, had a beam of 15.8m (51.8feet) and a depth of 9.4m (30.8feet). She was assessed at and had a triple expansion engine producing 772 nhp, driving a single screw propeller. The ship could reach a maximum speed of 13kn and had four masts and one funnel.[2] Her sister ships were:,, and .[3]
Winefreda originally sailed from London to New York City from her maiden voyage on 3 March 1898 until June 1898, when she was renamed to Mesaba and continued to operate on that line. She collided with the Wilson Line ship, before colliding with yet another liner, the, not much later on 4 October 1900 in New York Harbor. Mesaba only received slight damage both times. She also made three trips from Antwerp to Boston and Philadelphia for the Red Star Line between 1912 and 1914. She resumed her usual sailing plan in June 1915. She was however involved in a third collision on 11 August 1918 in the Irish Sea with .[4]
On the night the struck an iceberg and began to sink on 14 April 1912, she had received a series of warnings from other ships of drifting ice in the area of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. One of those ships to send her a warning, was the Mesaba. [5]
Mesaba departed Liverpool for Philadelphia in convoy OL32/OE21 on 31 August 1918 under the command of Captain Owen Percy Clarke. The following day, she was torpedoed and sunk by 21nmi east of the Tuskar Rock in the Irish Sea. Twenty of her crew were lost, including her captain and chief officer, with the remaining 78 rescued by the gunboat Kildini, commanded by Lieutenant F.J. Silva.[6]
The wreck of Mesaba lies at (52.2833°N -43°W) in 96m (315feet) of water. The wreck, with its bow broken off, was positively identified by a team from the University of Bangor in September 2022 by the use of sonar.[7] Before that, the wreck was believed to be that of, a passenger ship that was sunk on the same day and by the same U-boat while travelling in the same convoy as Mesaba close to her position.[8]
United Kingdom