SS Scharnhorst (1904)

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SS Scharnhorst, Watson's Bay, 1907 by Charles Ephraim Smith Tindall
History
Name	1905: Scharnhorst 1920: La Bourdonnais
Namesake	1905: Gerhard von Scharnhorst
Owner	1905: Norddeutscher Lloyd 1920: Cie Générale Transatlantique
Port of registry	1905: Bremen 1919: Le Havre
Route	Bremen – Australia
Ordered	1902
Builder	Joh. C. Tecklenborg, Geestemünde
Yard number	181
Laid down	1902
Launched	14 May 1904
Completed	20 August 1904
Identification	1905: code letters QHVB by 1913: wireless call sign DSA 1919: code letters OKXG
Fate	Scrapped in 1934
General characteristics
Class and type	"General"-class mail steamship
Tonnage	8,388 GRT, 4,805 NRT
Displacement	13,500 tons
Length	453.5 ft (138.2 m)
Beam	55.8 ft (17.0 m)
Depth	36.0 ft (11.0 m)
Decks	4
Installed power	696 NHP; 6,000 ihp
Propulsion	2 × triple-expansion engines 2 × screws
Speed	14 knots (26 km/h)
Capacity	90 × 1st class; 70 × 2nd class; 2,000 × steerage
Crew	170

SS Scharnhorst was a German ocean liner and mail ship launched in 1904.

The ship was built at the Joh. C. Tecklenborg shipyard in Geestemünde, Germany, for the Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) shipping company.

Scharnhorst was one of a class of eleven mail steamships called the "General"-class. Her sister ships were Zieten, Roon, Seydlitz, Gneisenau, Bülow, Yorck, Kleist, Goeben, Lützow and Derfflinger, all built for the German Imperial Mail Service to Australia and the Far East. Occasionally these ships ran on NDL's North Atlantic service.

On 19 December 1908, Scharnhorst arrived in New York harbor, after having been delayed by inclement weather. Two passengers died on the trip, one killed by a wave that smashed him into the railing. Both passengers were buried the next day.^[1]

When the First World War started she had made 19 round trips to Australia, seven to the Far East and five to the USA. She was the only ship of her class to be in Germany in 1914, and was used for some time in 1917 and 1918 as a troopship in the Baltic Sea.

In 1919 she was seized by France. In 1920 she was transferred to Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, who renamed her La Bourdonnais, and used her until 1931. In 1934 she was broken up in Genoa.

• SS Scharnhorst (1934)

• Edwin Drechsel: Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen, 1857–1970; History, Fleet, Ship Mails, vol. 1. Vancouver: Cordillera, 1995

• Paquebot La Bourdonnais