SS Orbita

SS Orbita in 1916
History
United Kingdom
Name	SS Orbita
Owner	Pacific Steam Navigation Company
Operator	Cunard Line, Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, Pacific Steam Navigation Company
Port of registry	Liverpool
Route	North Atlantic service
Builder	Harland and Wolff, Belfast
Yard number	440
Launched	7 July 1914
Completed	31 July 1915
Maiden voyage	26 September 1919
In service	1915
Out of service	1950
Identification	Official number 137467
Fate	Scrapped, 1950, in Newport
General characteristics
Class and type	Ocean liner
Tonnage	15,495 GRT
Length	550.3 feet (167.7 m)
Beam	67.3 feet (20.5 m)
Draught	35 feet 10+1⁄4 inches (10.93 m)
Depth	43.0 feet (13.1 m)
Propulsion	Triple-expansion engines + low-pressure turbine; Triple screw[1]
Speed	15 knots (28 km/h)
Capacity	896 passengers

SS Orbita was an ocean liner built in 1913-14 by Harland & Wolff in Belfast for the Pacific Steam Navigation Company. She was launched on Tuesday, 7 July 1914. Her sister ships were SS Orduna and SS Orca.^[2]

She provided transatlantic passenger transport, measured about 15,500 gross register tons, and was 550.3 ft x 67.3 ft.

History[]

From 1921 to 1923 the Orbita was chartered to operate the Royal Mail's United Kingdom – New York City service. In 1923 she was transferred to Royal Mail ownership, remaining with them for three years before reverting to the Pacific Steam Navigation Company.^[3]

Between 1946 and 1950 the Orbita was used as a troopship and to transport emigrants to Australia and New Zealand.^[4] The Orbita was an important part of the history of multiracialism in the United Kingdom, arriving with the second group of immigrants from the West Indies (after the Empire Windrush). The passengers were part of the first large group of West Indian immigrants to the UK after the Second World War.^[5]

War service[]

The Orbita entered service as an armed merchant cruiser and later as a troop ship during the First World War, delaying her maiden voyage as a passenger liner, from Liverpool to Rio de Janeiro, until 1919.^[6] In 1941, in the Second World War, she was requisitioned as a troop ship, leaving Durban SA she transported 268 men of the first unit of British Honduran Foresters via Trinidad and Halifax Nova Scotia to the Port of Liverpool on 12 September 1941 (Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and successors: Inwards Passenger Lists. Kew, Surrey, England). She continued as a troop ship until at least 1949.^[7]

Demise[]

The SS Orbita was dismantled in October 1950 in Newport, South Wales.^[8]

References[]