The steamship HANSA--the first of three of this name built for Norddeutscher Lloyd--was built by Caird & Co, Greenock (ship #92, contract price 65,000 pounds sterling), and launched on 23 August 1861. 2,992 tons; 96,92 x 12,19 meters (length x breadth); clipper bow, 1 funnel, 3 masts; iron construction, screw propulsion (low-pressure tandem engine with surface condensers; 750-1500 hp), service speed 11.5 knots; accommodation for 76 passengers in 1st class, 107 in 2nd class, and 480 in steerage; crew of 102. 24 November 1861, maiden voyage, Bremen-Southampton-New York. 1864, given Krupp steel shaft and air preheating. 13 June 1868, boarded 630 Mormons in Copenhagen for Hull (and New York). 28 November 1871, sailed Southampton for New York; engine failure; arrived St. John 18 December under sail; after minimal repairs continued 23 December for New York. 12 November 1878, last voyage, Bremen-New York. Fall 1879, sold to Oswald, Mordaunt & Co, Southampton, in partial payment for the HANSA (II); resold to shipbroker E. Bates, Liverpool. 1880, registered to T. R. Oswald & R. Gebbs, Liverpool. 1881, registered to T. R. Gebbs, Liverpool. 1881, compound engines by J. Howden & Co,
Glasgow. May 1881-March 1882, 6 roundtrip voyages, London-Boston, chartered to Adamson & Ronaldson. 1883, purchased by the White Cross Line, Antwerp, and renamed LUDWIG; 3,087 tons. 2 July 1883, sailed from Antwerp for Montreal with 27 passengers, 43 crew, and 433 head of cattle; went missing after making contact on 3 July with Prawle Point, 20 miles southeast of Plymouth [Edwin Drechsel, Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen, 1857-1970; History, Fleet, Ship Mails, vol. 1 (Vancouver: Cordillera Pub. Co., c1994), pp. 16-17 (picture); Noel Reginald Pixell Bonsor, North Atlantic Seaway; An Illustrated History of the Passenger Services Linking the Old World with the New (2nd ed.; Jersey, Channel Islands: Brookside Publications), vol. 2 (1978), pp. 512 (photograph), 544-545, and 825]. -
[Posted to the Emigration-Ships Mailing List by Michael Palmer - 13 August 1998]