SS Suevic The SS " Suevic " was a steamship built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast for the White Star Line . " Suevic " was the fifth and last of the " Jubilee Class " ocean liners , built specifically to service the Liverpool - Cape Town - Sydney route . In 1907 she was shipwrecked off the south coast of England , but in the largest rescue of its kind , all passengers and crew were saved . The ship herself was deliberately broken in two , and a new bow was attached to the salvaged stern portion . Later serving as a Norwegian whaling factory ship carrying the name " Skytteren " , she was scuttled off the Swedish coast in 1942 to prevent her capture by ships of Nazi Germany . Design and construction . When White Star inaugurated service from Liverpool to Sydney in 1899 , they commissioned three ships to be built for that route , " Afric " , " Medic " and " Persic " . All three were single - funnel liners which measured just under and were configured to carry 320 steerage or third class passengers . Because these ships were launched in the last year of the 19th century , they were referred to as the " Jubilee Class " , reflecting the popular mood regarding the coming of the new century . With the popularity of this route amongst immigrants to Australia , White Star quickly decided to order two more of the class , both of which would be slightly larger than the first three . The first of these was " Runic " ( the second ship of that name ) , launched on 25 October 1900 . The second , and largest of the class , was " Suevic " , at 12 , 531 GRT . " Runic " and " Suevic " had several minor design changes , the most noticeable of which were the lengthening of the poop deck , and the moving of the bridge closer to the bow . These ships could carry 400 passengers and had seven cargo holds , some of which were refrigerated . White Star service . " Suevic " was launched on 8 December 1900 , and set sail on her maiden voyage to Sydney on 23 March 1901 . Shortly thereafter , " Suevic " and her four sisters were pressed into service carrying troops to fight in the Boer War in South Africa . In August 1901 she made her one and only voyage from Liverpool to New York City . Once the Boer War was over , White Star was finally able to institute regular monthly service to Australia using the Jubilee - class ships . On one 1903 voyage , a young officer named Charles Lightoller was assigned to crew " Suevic " as a punishment . During the voyage , he met an 18 - year old woman who was returning to her home in Sydney , and after a shipboard courtship , the two were married in Sydney on 15 December 1903 . Lightoller would later become the second officer on board the RMS " Titanic " , and the most senior of her crew to survive the disaster . Shipwreck . Navigational errors . " Suevic ' s " first six years of service were uneventful , but then disaster struck . On 2 February 1907 she left Melbourne with scheduled stops at Cape Town , Tenerife , Plymouth , London and finally Liverpool , under the command of Thomas Jones . On 17 March 1907 , she was inbound to Liverpool with 382 passengers , 141 crew members and a nearly - full cargo , including thousands of sheep carcasses worth £400 , 000 . By noon , she was 140 miles off the southwest coast of England . This section of the English coast was hazardous , due to shallow waters , sharp rocks , and often - dense fog , so it was normally avoided by ships . By the afternoon , the " Suevic " had entered a typically dense fog bank . By 10 pm , the ship ' s officers were not able to fix their position using stellar navigation , so they intended to use instead the Lizard lighthouse on Lizard Point , Cornwall ( known simply as " The Lizard " ) , which they soon spotted . Upon seeing the light , they calculated that it was at least 10 miles away , and thus thought themselve safe . Despite the fog , they pressed ahead at full speed , without using the sounding line to ensure they were not approaching the shore . Twenty minutes after sighting the lighthouse , the ship ran aground violently at full speed amongst the rocks of Maenheere Reef , a quarter of a mile off The Lizard . " Suevic " was about 16 miles closer to the shore than her command crew believed . Rescue . Jones first made several attempts to back the ship off the rocks , running the engines at full astern , to no avail . Despite her position , the ship did not appear to be in danger of sinking . The captain ordered the distress rockets to be fired , and a local rescue effort ensued , with all the passengers and crew escaping to shore safely . The rescue was led by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution ( RNLI ) , and it became the largest rescue in that institution ' s 183 - year history . RNLI lifeboats , manned by local volunteers from stations at the Lizard , Cadgwith , Coverack and Porthleven , rescued all the passengers , including 70 babies , as well as the crew . The operation took 16 hours to complete . As a result of the successful efforts of the rescuers , four silver RNLI medals were awarded to various volunteers and two were awarded to " Suevic " crew members for their actions . In March 2007 a ceremony was held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the rescue . The Cadgwith lifeboat was " Minnie Moon " . Two silver RNLI gallantry medals were awarded to members of the Cadgwith Lifeboat crew : Edwin Rutter , Coxswain Superintendent and Rev . ‘ Harry ’ Vyvyan , Honorary Secretary . Salvage . The bow section was badly damaged , but not irreparably so , and the rest of the ship , including the boilers and engines , were not damaged at all . It was determined that if the ship could be lightened , the tide would then lift her off the bottom and she could be sailed to port . With this in mind , three days later , on 20 March , the cargo was unloaded into small coastal freighters . Initially , it appeared that the attempt would succeed , but a week later , after various other vessels had attempted to pull " Suevic " off the rocks , the weather deteriorated , and waves drove her farther onto shore , from whence she could not be moved . With the bow now irretrievably stuck , and the threat of even worse weather coming which could completely destroy the ship , White Star officials decided to attempt an unorthodox method of saving the stern half of the ship , which was not grounded nor damaged , by separating it from the damaged bow . " Suevic " , like other White Star liners , had been built with watertight compartments as a safety precaution . Depending on the integrity of this design , engineers used carefully placed charges of dynamite to sever the bow at a bulkhead just aft of the bridge on 4 April . This move was successful , and the aft half of the ship floated free . The watertight compartments held their integrity , and " Suevic " was able to steam under her own power , in reverse and guided by tugs , to Southampton . The damaged bow was left to break up on the rocks . Rebuilding : the " longest ship in the world " . White Star then ordered a new 212 - foot bow section from Harland and Wolff in Belfast , which was launched head - first in October 1907 . It was popularly said at the time that " Suevic " was the longest ship in the world , with her bow in Belfast and her stern in Southampton . The new bow was then towed to the shipyards of J . I . Thorneycroft & Co . in Southampton , where it arrived on 26 October . By mid - November , it was in position and being joined to the rest of the ship . The bow was a good fit , a testimony to the craftsmanship of the Harland and Wolff shipwrights . Ten months later , after the largest ship rebuilding effort ever undertaken at the time , on 14 January 1908 , " Suevic " was completed and returned to service . War service . When the First World War began , many British ships were pressed into war service . The ability to carry frozen meat in their refrigerated holds meant that the " Jubilee Class " liners were left in commercial service so that they could bring provisions for the war effort , although they also carried troops on their normal route . " Suevic " did make one dedicated war run , in March 1915 , carrying British troops to Moudros , as a part of the Dardanelles Campaign . From that point , until 1919 , " Suevic " operated under the British Navy ' s Liner Requisition Scheme rather than under White Star management , although she continued on her commercial route to Australia . SS " Skytteren " . Following the war , White Star refitted " Suevic " , adding the capacity for 266 second - class passengers , after which she returned to her Australian route . In March 1924 , she completed her 50th voyage on that route . In 1928 , though , " Suevic " was showing her age , and White Star sold her to Yngvar Hvistendahl ' s Finnhval A / S for £35 , 000 , who renamed her " Skytteren " and sent her to Germaniawerft at Kiel to be converted into a whaling factory ship . She served with the Norwegian whaling fleets in Antarctic waters . 1936 AS Finnhval came under control of the Norwegian shipping agent Jørgen Krag who handled on behalf of the German " Margarine Union " . So until the war her hunting results were delivered to Germany . When Nazi Germany invaded Norway in the Second World War , " Skytteren " was interned in the neutral port of Gothenburg , Sweden , with several other Norwegian ships in April 1940 . The exiled Norwegian government claimed these ships as its property , which was contested by the collaborationist Nasjonal Samling government in occupied Norway . However , a court ruling favoured the exiled government ' s claim . On 1 April 1942 , 10 Norwegian ships at Gothenburg made an attempt to escape into Allied - controlled waters , where they would be met and protected by a group of British warships . However , Sweden would not allow the Norwegian ships to use their neutral waters for this , and Swedish ships steered the escapees towards waiting German warships . Of the 10 , two made it through to the British , six were sunk by the Germans or scuttled by their crew , of which Skytteren was one , two turned back to Göteborg . " Skytteren " was scuttled in the waters off Måseskär , Sweden . Her crew were taken as prisoners of war . The wreck of the " Skytteren " remains in those waters , with her bow facing to the west .