West Lynn
West Lynn ID: 1148837. Launched: 14.8.28.
GT: 4702.
LPP:122.3.
Beam: 16.5.
Built 1928 by Napier and Miller, Old Kirkpatrick, Gourock. Engines 6-cylinder B&W built by Kincaids
| 1928 | Delivered to Sir William Reardon Smith. |
| 1931 | Renamed Williamette Valley. (See comment below). |
| 1939 | Edgehill. Taken over by the Royal Navy. |
| 1940 | Torpedoed and sunk by German submarine. |
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| West Lynn on sea trials Clyde 1928. |
The West Lynn was the company’s first motor ship, followed soon afterwards by the East Lynn. The decision to move away from steam was taken solely by Sir William Reardon Smith, and since he had received opposition from the rest of the Board, he paid for them out of his own resources. This would account for their apparently “unusual” names. However, after their obvious success, the West Lynn was renamed the Willamette Valley in 1931, and joined the liner/timber division of the company, under the management of the Oakwin SS Co.Ltd. In 1937, she was moved to the Reardon Smith Line, but at the outbreak of WW2, she was requisitioned by the War Ministry and became the Q Ship Edge Hill, operated and manned by Naval personnel. In this guise, she was fitted out with armaments, and other artefacts of a warship, and additionally fitted with permanent “buoyancy” ballast. Like the other 8 Q ships run by the Admiralty for the War Ministry, she was not a success, and despite it taking three torpedoes from U-boat 51 to do so, she was sunk on 29th June 1940, in 49.20N/15.30W, with the loss of many of her company. |