SS Melita

SS Melita was one of a pair of transatlantic steam ocean liners built in the United Kingdom for Canadian Pacific, launched in 1917 with her sister ship Minnedosa. Hamburg America Line had ordered the pair from Barclay, Curle and Company in 1913, and Canadian Pacific bought them part built during the First World War. Melita had three screws, two driven by four-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines and a middle one driven by a low-pressure turbine using their exhaust steam, giving a top speed of about 16.5 knots. She had berths for 550 cabin class and 1,200 third class passengers. Delivered on 12 January 1918, she served as a troopship and later ran between Liverpool and New York, and between Britain, Quebec and Montreal, crossing the North Atlantic 146 times. Sold to Italian owners in 1935 she became the troop ship Liguria, was torpedoed in 1940 and scuttled at Tobruk in 1941, and her raised wreck was scrapped in 1950.