SS Delphic (1897)

SS Delphic was an ocean liner of the White Star Line, built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast and completed on 15 May 1897. She worked the New Zealand trade.

In design Delphic was built as a smaller and slower version of the earlier liner Gothic which also served the New Zealand service, but more space was given over to passenger accommodation rather than cargo, and this gave Delphic a capacity for 1,000 steerage passengers. She was built for a joint service between White Star Line and the Shaw, Savill & Albion Line.

Upon her delivery in May 1897 to White Star Line's shipowning company, Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, it was decided to give Delphics machinery a run in with several voyages on the Atlantic, as such her maiden voyage began on 17 June between Liverpool and New York, she made two round trips across the Atlantic before entering service on her intended route between London and Wellington on 3 October 1897.

Delphic served as a troopship during the Second Boer War carrying troops from New Zealand to South Africa between 1900 and 1902, following which she returned to commercial service.

Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, she remained on her commercial service. On 16 February 1917, Delphic narrowly avoided being torpedoed by  off the south coast of Ireland; the torpedo was fired, but just missed the ship. In March 1917, she was taken over under the Liner Requisition Scheme. On 16 August 1917, Delphic was torpedoed and sunk by the Imperial German Navy submarine   from Bishop Rock, Isles of Scilly (), during a coal transport voyage from Cardiff, Wales,  to Montevideo, Uruguay. Five people were killed in the sinking.

References

Category:Ocean liners
Category:1897 ships
Category:Ships built by Harland and Wolff
Category:Ships of the White Star Line
Category:Ships built in Belfast
Category:Maritime incidents in 1917
Category:Ships sunk by German submarines in World War I
Category:World War I shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean