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Empress of Ireland was built for
the Canadian Pacific Railway Company to
be operated on the Liverpool - Quebec run
alongside her sister ship Empress of
Britain. These ships were mainly used
to provide a mail service and transport
emigrants from Britain to Canada.
Empress of Ireland set out on her
maiden voyage from Liverpool - Quebec
June 29th 1906. With her being one
of the fastest ships on that route, she
could complete these crossings in five
and a half days. Empress of
Ireland departed Quebec for the last
time traveling down the St Lawrence River
bound for Liverpool in the early
afternoon May 29th 1914. In the early
hours of June 1st, she encountered heavy
fog when nearing the mouth of the river.
Soon after encountering the fog,
Empress of Ireland’s lookout
sighted a ship steaming towards them on
their starboard side. Her captain
responded to the situation by putting the
engines in reverse to give the oncoming
ship more time to maneuver and pass
safely.
The crew of the approaching ship, the
Norwegian collier Storstad, took
the decision to pass port to port. As the
Storstad’s captain made a
turn to starboard, he believed the ships
were further apart than they really were.
That miscalculation led to his ships bow
crashing into the Empress of
Ireland’s starboard side. The
collision holed the Empress of
Ireland above and below the waterline
at the area of her engine compartment. As
water soon filled the damaged
compartments, she took on a list to
starboard, this leading to water entering
throughout the ship through open
portholes. Empress of Ireland
turned on her side within 11 minutes and
sank approximately 14 minutes after the
impact, taking all but four lifeboats
with her. Even though her captain managed
to take control of a lifeboat and saved
many passengers by ferrying them to the
Storstad, this became the worst
ever-Canadian maritime disaster as 1,012
of the Empress of Ireland’s
passengers and crew lost their lives.
Empress of Britain was operated on
various routes before steaming to Norway
for scrapping in 1930.
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