HMS Riviera
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| Career |  |
|---|---|
| Ordered: | |
| Laid Down: | 1910 at Wm Denny & Bros, Dumbarton . |
| Launched: | 1st April 1911 |
| Requisitioned: | 1914 Converted in Chatham Dockyard |
| Decommissioned: | Returned to civilian service 1919 |
| Fate: | |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 1,850 tons |
| Length: | 316 feet ( metres) overall |
| Beam: | 41 feet ( metres) |
| Draught: | 14 feet ( metres) |
| Propulsion: | 6 Babcock and Wilcox water-tube, coal fired boiler for propulsion, plus one for auxiliary use. 3 sets of Parsons direct-drive turbines, 3 shafts 11,000 shaft horsepower |
| Speed: | 20.5 knots ( km per hour) |
| Range: | 860 miles at 10 knots |
| Complement: | 250 |
| Armament: | |
| Armour: | |
| Aircraft: | 1914 - Short S.74 & 2 Short S.135 (for the Cuxhaven Raid).1915 - 4 Short S.184 (for the Ems Reconnaissance). 1917 - Sopwith Babies. |
| Motto | |
HMS Riviera was a seaplane tender originally built as a cross-channel steamer (one of the first to act as a car ferry) and converted for military use in 1914.
Along with her sister ship HMS Engadine she was involved in some of the first uses of seaborne air power. A notable member of her crew was Robert Erskine Childers whose knowledge of the east German coast was considered very important in the Christmas raid on Cuxhaven.
In 1919 the ship returned to civilian use under her original name of RTMS Lairds Isle. She once again entered military service on 28 August 1939 as HMS Laird's Isle, an Armed Boarding Vessel and carried landing craft and tanks on D-Day.
She returned to civil use again in 1946.
