The Ship

SS Imperatrix (Photo courtesy of Lloyds Triestino)	Postcard photograph of Imperatrix, circa.1904
The Imperatrix was completed towards the end of 1888, joining her sister ship The Imperator, described as the pride of the Austro Hungarian line, as a passenger/freight steamer built specifically to carry passengers through the Suez Canal to India, in particular to take part in the regular “Express” service to Bombay. This regular route is described as taking 18 days to reach Bombay from Trieste in 1904; leaving Trieste on December 7th, calling at Port Said on 11th December, Aden on 16th December and reaching Bombay on 23rd December. [1] She was originally recorded in the Lloyds register of Shipping in 1888 (Number in book 54) as a steel built, steam driven 3 masted steamer with a gross weight of 4070 tons. Built by Lloyd Austro – Ungarico in the company’s shipyards at Trieste Arsenale, she measured 390 foot long by 45 foot wide with a depth of 24.7 feet, a later entry giving her freeboard as 23.3 feet. (117m length, 13.7m beam) A “Spar decked” vessel” with her steel upper deck and spar decks covered in wood, she had six bulkheads with a double bottom extending for 93 feet under her engines and boilers; the cavity formed taking a ballast of 290 tons of water.
Her triple expansion three-cylinder steam engine, also built by Austro Ungarico in Trieste, developed 760 HP and, driving a single screw, gave her a top speed of 15 knots. Lloyds’ records show that her first master in 1889 was F.Egger and later entries give her radio call sign HKTD. Whilst small by modern standards, at the time she was laid down she was one of the largest ships in the Austrian Lloyd fleet and ships of her size were regularly carrying up to 500 or more passengers on the immigrant routes between Europe and America. The Imperatrix herself normally had a passenger list of 113 and on the night of her wrecking, according to the account of the wreck carried in the Lloyds Weekly Shipping report dated 28 February 1907, had on board 120 crew, including cargo hands, and 20 passengers including two children and four nuns.