SS Glentworth

SS Glentworth was a shelter deck cargo steamship built in 1920 by Hawthorn Leslie & Co. in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England for R.S. Dalgliesh and Dalgliesh Steam Shipping Co. Ltd., also of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.[1] After the Great Depression affected UK merchant shipping in the first years of the 1930s, Dalgliesh sold Glentworth to a company controlled by Counties Ship Management (an offshoot of the Rethymnis & Kulukundis shipbroking company of London[4]) who renamed her SS Box Hill.[1]

History
United Kingdom
Name: SS Glentworth[1]
Owner:
Port of registry: Newcastle-upon-Tyne[2]
Builder: Hawthorn Leslie & Co, Newcastle-upon-Tyne[2]
Yard number: 490[1]
Launched: 15 July 1920
Completed: November 1920[2]
Out of service: 1934[1]
Identification:
Fate: Sold[1]
 
Name: SS Box Hill[1]
Namesake: Box Hill, Surrey
Owner: Surrey Hill Steamship Co. Ltd.[3]
Operator: Counties Ship Management Co Ltd, London[1]
Port of registry: London[3]
Acquired: 1934[1]
Out of service: 31 December 1939[1]
Identification:
Fate: Sunk by mine
General characteristics
Class and type: cargo ship[1]
Tonnage:
  • 5,677 GRT
  • tonnage under deck 5,310
  • 3,510 NRT[2]
Length: 450.0 ft (137.2 m)[2] p/p
Beam: 55.0 ft (16.8 m)[2]
Draught: 25 feet 6 1⁄4 inches (7.78 m)[2]
Depth: 26.4 ft (8.0 m)[2]
Installed power:
  • 620 NHP (as built);[2]
  • 586 NHP (after 1934)[3]
Propulsion:

Hawthorn Leslie reduction-geared turbine (as built);[2]

Hawthorn Leslie 3-cylinder triple expansion steam engine (after 1934)[3]
Speed: 11 knots (20 km/h)[1]
Crew: 20 or 22[1]

Details

The ship's stokehold had 12 corrugated furnaces with a combined grate area of 214 square feet (20 m2).[2] They heated three 200 lbf/in2 single-ended boilers with a combined heating surface of 8,655 square feet (804 m2).[2][3] She was built as a turbine steamer: two steam turbines with a combined power output of 620 NHP drove the shaft to the single propellor by reduction gearing.[2] However, when she changed hands in 1934 she was re-engined with a Hawthorn Leslie 586 NHP three-cylinder triple expansion steam engine.[3] The conversion retained her original boilers, but her furnaces were converted to oil burning.[3]

The ship was equipped with direction finding equipment and radio.[2]

Loss

Late in 1939 Box Hill sailed from Saint John, New Brunswick bound for Hull with a cargo of 8,452 tons wheat.[1] On New Year's Eve she was in the North Sea 9 nautical miles (17 km) off the Humber lightship when she struck a German mine.[1] The explosion broke her back and she sank almost immediately with the loss of all hands.[1]

Box Hill was Counties Ship Management's first loss of the Second World War. CSM's losses continued until just a week before the surrender of Japan in August 1945, by which time the company had lost a total of 13 ships.

Both sections of Box Hill's wreck were a hazard to shipping and showed above the water.[1] In 1952 the Royal Navy dispersed her remains with high explosive and Admiralty charts now mark her position as a "foul" ground.[1]

References
  1. Lettens, Jan; Racey, Carl (30 December 2010). "SS Box Hill [+1939]". The Wreck Site. Retrieved 25 May 2011.
  2. Lloyd's Register of Shipping (PDF). London: Lloyd's Register. 1933. Retrieved 30 March 2013.
  3. Lloyd's Register of Shipping (PDF). London: Lloyd's Register. 1934. Retrieved 30 March 2013.
  4. Fenton, Roy (2006). "Counties Ship Management 1934–2007". LOF–News. p. 1. Retrieved 26 July 2010.

Sources & further reading
  • Sedgwick, Stanley (1993) [1992]. Kinnaird, Mark; O'Donoghue, K.J (eds.). London & Overseas Freighters, 1948–92: A Short History. World Ship Society. ISBN 0-905617-68-1.
  • Sedgwick, Stanley; Sprake, R.F. (1977). London & Overseas Freighters Limited 1949–1977. World Ship Society. ISBN 0905617037.

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