Builders: Vickers Sons & Maxim, Barrow 1908
Propulsion type: Direct drive steam turbines
Owners: Isle of Man Steam Packet Co Ltd.
Service dates: 1908 - 1917
Tonnage: Gross 2250
Comments:
The reverse of the card from which this picture is taken states "BEN-MY-CHREE was the largest and fastest coasting vessel in the World. She was fitted for War Service as a Sea-plane carrier. She took out the Aerial appliances which were used to sink the German Battle Ship 'Konigsberg' in the Cameroons River, steaming all the way from England at 22 knots. Returning to the Suez Canal, she did good work in the Near East, till unfortunately set on fire by the Turks. She fought their guns for 11 hours till the fire reached her own explosives. She now lies sunk in shallow water."
With the success of their first turbine steamer Viking, the IOMSPCo ordered Ben-my-Chree from the same builders. She was carried upto 2550 passengers and was capable of 27 knots, although her service speed between Liverpool and Douglas was 24 knots. During the Great War she carried four seaplanes, which carried a Lewis gun and one torpedo each. A plane carried by her sunk a Turkish supply ship in 1915 and was the first recorded successful airborne torpedo attack. She was, as stated above, sunk in Kastelorizo Harbour on 11 January 1917, but she was raised again in 1920, after the cessation of hostilities. She was never reconditioned though and was broken up it 1923.