SS Nascopie

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SS Nascopie was a steamship built by Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson of Newcastle, England. She was launched on December 7, 1911 and achieved speeds of 14.1 knots (26 km/h) during her sea trials. Her gross tonnage was 1870 tons (5,300 m³) and she was 285.5 feet in length, 43.5 feet at the beam (87.0 m long, 13.3 m beam). Fully laden she drew 17.5 feet forward and 22 feet aft (5.3 and 6.7 m). She was powered by triple expansion steam engines with cylinders 21.5, 35.5 and 58 inches (546, 902, and 1,473 mm) in diameter and a stroke of 42 inches (1067 mm). Her boiler pressure was 180 pounds-force per square inch (1.24 MPa) and the two main boilers were 15 feet in diameter and 11.5 feet long, fired by six furnaces.

The Nascopie was fitted with an ice breaker bow and her plates were of five-eights inch steel. She carried Marconi apparatus located beside the wheelhouse on the upper deck. Her maiden crew was from Newfoundland under Captain Smith and they sailed for Penarth, South Wales in late January, 1912 to take on a load a coal bound for St. John's. That winter she was employed in the annual seal hunt of the coast of Newfoundland under Captain Barbour for the Job Brothers mercantile business at St. John's.

Soon after World War I had broken out the Russians was in dire need of ships with ice breaking capacity, and they placed orders with British shipyards and at the same time began a campaign of purchasing icebreakers on the open market. They first went to Ottawa and purchased the icebreakers Earl Grey and Minto. They then purchased from the Reid Newfoundland Company the icebreaking mail steamers Bruce and Lintrose. They then began negotiations with A. J. Harvey and Co. for the purchase of Bellaventure, Bonaventure and Adventure and with Job Brothers for Beothic and Nascopie. They purchased all except for the Nascopie which continued her supply route to service the Hudson Bay operations.