Empress of Britain

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There have been three ships named Empress of Britain. All were transatlantic ocean liners originally built by Canadian Pacific Steamship Company for travel between Canada and Europe.

  • The first Empress of Britain was launched in 1905. She was 14,189 gross tons and had a service speed of approximately 18 knots. Her sister ship, Empress of Ireland, sank in the St. Lawrence River with great loss of life. She was scrapped in 1930. [1] [2]
  • The second Empress of Britain, launched in 1930, was a 42,348 gross ton luxury liner with a speed of 24 knots. She was designed to bring more traffic to the Canada-to-Europe transatlantic route. She was torpedoed by a U-boat and sank off the west coast of Ireland in 1940.
  • The third Empress of Britain was launched in 1955. She was 25500 gross tons, had a speed of 20 knots, and was one of the first North Atlantic liners to have air conditioning throughout. Her sister ship was the Empress of England. She only did liner service until 1963. She has been sold to a number of different companies and has served under many different names, mostly as a cruise ship. As of 2006 she is named The Topaz and is used by the Peace Boat organization. [3] [4] [5][6]