SOLD TO SHIP-BREAKERS.

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 22, 26 January 1924, Page 24

SOLD TO SHIP-BREAKERS.

Formerly known as the Aberdeen Line steamer Miltiades, the Orcana has been sold by the Pacific Steam Navigation Company to a Dutch firm of ship-break-ers. As the Miltiades, she was in her time.one of the best-known Australian fliers, which was only as it should have been, she having been named after the clipper. A sister of the Marathon, she was built, by Stephens, of Linthouse, and the pair were the last clipper-bowed steamers built by that firm. They were perfectly proportioned and really yacht liners; When launched the! Miltiades had a gross tonnage^ of 6973 ton.s, and oh trials did 16 knots instead .of the contract 14. Her first commander .was the famous Captain Spalding. ■• She broke the "via Cape" record on her maiden trip, and became so popular with the travelling public that her owners, deciding to make a good ship betteV, sent her back after she had been in service eight years to have her cut in two, and lengthened 50 feet amidships, an operation which only affected her loaded draft by 4 inches. In doing so they' spoiled her appearance. She carried 1220 tons and 4Q passengers more, but the second funnel, which, never would come the same colour as the first, and the unsightly Sampson post* ruined her beauty. Curiously enough, the alteration, which spoiled her rake and beauty, increased her apeed and diminished her coal consumption. Early in the war the Miltiades was taken up for conveying troops until late in 1917. Then ihe went to Sir Joseph Maclay, who, put her into the Canadian grain trade. After the Armistice the Miltiadea was engitged ,in repatriation work, find then reiumgd'' ' the Australian service, Displaced by the Sophocles and Diogenes, the Jtfiltia'des was sold, and allotted to the P.S.Ni for the PaeU flq earvico, A few months later ishe was withdrawn, R nd laid up at Dartmouth, where ghg hns remained sines latt Mbj'l