USAT McClellan
 USAT McClellan c. 1917 or earlier | |
| History | |
|---|---|
| Name | USAT McClellan |
| Owner |
|
| Operator |
|
| Builder | Andrew Leslie & Co. (England) |
| Launched | 27 August 1885 |
| Christened | Port Victor |
| Completed | 1885 |
| In service |
|
| Renamed |
|
| Fate | Sold for scrap, 1922 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Passenger-cargo steamship |
| Tonnage | 2,793 tons, 1,827 grt |
| Length | 336 ft (102 m)[1] |
| Beam | 38 ft (12 m)[1] |
| Draught | 27 ft (8.2 m)[1] |
| Installed power | 400 hp triple expansion steam engines |
| Propulsion | Screw propeller |
| Sail plan | Barque-rigged |
USAT McClellan was a United States Army transport ship that saw service during the Spanish–American War and World War I. She also participated in the occupation of Veracruz in 1914.
McClellan was originally SS Port Victor, a steel-hulled passenger-cargo screw steamer, built for Anglo-Australian service in the 1880s. Eventually converted into an early example of a refrigerated ship, Port Victor continued in Australian service until shortly before her sale in 1898 to the United States government for use as a transport during the Spanish–American War.
After the war, she was renamed USAT McClellan and employed as a U.S. Army transport for more than twenty years, supplying the garrisons in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Sold in 1919, she briefly returned to mercantile service under the name SS Hastier, until being damaged by a fire in 1920 and subsequently scrapped.
Construction and design
[edit]Port Victor was built by Andrew Leslie & Co.[2] at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1885 for W. Milburn & Co., a company which operated a fleet of ships between Britain and Australia under a subsidiary known as the Anglo-Australian Steam Navigation Company.[1] Port Victor was the Milburn Line's first steel-hulled ship, as well as being the first of the company's ships to have a clipper bow and be fitted with a triple expansion engine.[2] Like most of the Anglo-Australian Line's ships, Port Victor was named after an Australian port, in this case that of Port Victor, South Australia (now known as Victor Harbor).
Port Victor was a passenger-cargo ship of 2,793 tons[3] (1,828 tons gross).[4][5] The ship had two decks, six watertight bulkheads,[5] two masts,[a] barque-rigged,[6] and a single funnel.[a] Her powerplant was a 400 IHP, three-cylinder triple expansion steam engine with cylinders of 27, 42 and 70 inches by 48-inch stroke.[5] With her fine, "yacht-like" proportions, Port Victor was considered to be "out of the ordinary run" of tramp steamers and "one of the handsomest" of the Milburn fleet.[6] In addition to her cargoes, she could carry both cabin-class and steerage passengers.
Service history
[edit]Australian service
[edit]Port Victor entered service in 1885. For the next dozen years, she would operate from her homeport of London to a host of Australian ports, including those of Melbourne, Sydney, Hobart and Darwin, as well as other Pacific and Far Eastern destinations such as New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong and Batavia.
Port Victor's initial service period proved eventful. Her first recorded voyage to Australia took place in December 1885, carrying eight cabin- and six steerage-class passengers in addition to her cargoes. Upon arrival in Australia, the ship immediately became embroiled in controversy when The Argus newspaper in Melbourne accused a company responsible for providing some of the ship's cargoes of falsely describing a consignment of 13 tons of bisulphate of carbon, "a chemical of a most volatile and combustible nature", as sheep dip.[7] The firm in question quickly sued the paper for libel, and in August 1887, won damages of £250 in a split jury decision. The Argus however maintained that it had been correct to publish the story, citing public safety and noting that public pressure had since forced the shipping firm in question to reduce the amount of the chemical shipped in individual vessels.[8]
Shortly before the resolution of this court case, in July 1887, Port Victor again became the source of "considerable excitement" when one of the ship's passengers arriving in Sydney from Hong Kong turned out to have smallpox.[9] The passenger was quickly quarantined while the Sydney Board of Health took steps to have Hong Kong declared an "infected port".[10]
In June of the following year, Port Victor was again in the news, this time as the result of a rough passage from London to Sydney. On 28 May, the ship had run into a gale which tore away the topsails, while heavy seas smashed the port side of the upper bridge, wrecked the forward house on the bridge, and damaged one of the lifeboats. Sheep pens, hen coops, dog kennels and livestock on the ship's deck were swept overboard, and the passenger quarters, including the saloons and cabins, were flooded.[11] A little over a year later, on 8 July 1889, the ship suffered a second accident when she ran aground on a reef off Restoration Island, northwest of Brisbane, on a coal-carrying voyage from Newcastle, NSW to Batavia. The ship was refloated without damage a few days later after the removal of about 200 tons of cargo.[12]
In October 1889, Port Victor sailed from London bound for Sydney with relieving crews for the Royal Navy ships HMS Royalist and