Technical Data

The poop was 67 feet long and the bridge deck 257 feet. There was also a forecastle of 104 feet. She had one funnel, twin screws, 4 masts, 3 decks and was fitted with electric light and refrigerating machinery. She had water ballast. She was fitted with quadruple expansion engines with 8 cylinders of 25.5, 36.5, 53 & 75.5 inches diameter each pair and stroke 54 inches. The engine - also built by Harland & Wolff - delivered 838 nominal horsepower, giving the ship a speed of 14 knots. She had passenger accommodation for 258 1st Class- and 1,160 3rd Class passengers.

Launched on 12th October, 1897, Cymric spent most of her passenger service career on the Liverpool - New York route.

Life aboard an Atlantic liner could be filled with incidents and not all of them were pleasant or positive in nature. On 23rd November, 1901, after breakfast, Thomas Halliday, a passenger who had boarded at Liverpool (he was returning home to Ohio after a visit to Ireland) produced a knife from his pocket and announced that he was going to kill everybody on the ship. He attacked his wife with the weapon and cut his own throat - killing himself and leaving her seriously injured. When Cymric called at Cobh/Queenstown, Mrs. Halliday and Mr. Halliday's body were taken ashore. 

In 1902, during the Boer War (South Africa), Cymric made two voyages as a troopship.

On 8th May, 1916, Cymric was torpedoed 3 times and sunk by the German submarine U-20 (one year earlier, the same submarine sank the Lusitania  off the coast of Ireland) 140 miles from Fastnet - five lives were lost.