SS Laurentic (1927)

SS Laurentic was an 18,724 gross register ton steam ocean liner built in 1927 by Harland and Wolff at Belfast for the White Star Line, the second ship of the company to bear the name and the last steamship built for it. She had three screws: a pair of four-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines drove the outer two and exhaust steam fed a low-pressure turbine that drove the middle one, for an average cruising speed of 16.5 knots. She sailed between Liverpool and Canada from 1927 to 1936, and after White Star merged with Cunard she was used mainly as a cruise ship, then was laid up in Liverpool from December 1935 to 1939. In 1939 the Admiralty converted her into an armed merchant cruiser, and on 3 and 4 November 1940 a U-boat torpedoed her off the west coast of Ireland while she was on a rescue mission, sinking her with the loss of 49 of her complement.