SS L'Atlantique, owned by the Compagnie de Navigation Sud Atlantique was the largest and most luxurious ocean liner on the Europe-South America run until her untimely destruction by fire.
In early January 1933, while traveling between Bordeaux and Le Havre to be refitted, the liner caught fire around from the Isle of Guernsey. The blaze was believed to have started in a first class stateroom, and was discovered by the ship's crew at around 3:30 in the morning. The fire spread rapidly, and by early morning the ship's captain, Rene Schoofs, ordered the crew of 200 to abandon ship. Four freighters responded to the ship's distress call, one of which, the SS Achilles, a Dutch steamship, rescued the entire crew. During the afternoon, L'Atlantique began listing to port, and on 5 January the French Ministry of Marine issued a statement saying the ship was considered a total loss. The Sunderland Echo and Shipping Gazette,, reports that on 4 January 1933 Thomas Henry Willmott, of Sunderland, first mate of the SS Ford Castle collier, was in charge of the lifeboat which went alongside the burning liner at considerable risk to pick up survivors which had been overlooked by the other rescuing ships. For this exploit he was awarded the Medaille de Sauvetage by the French Ministry of Merchant Marine and presented with a gold watch by the owners of the L'Atlantique. The liner was towed to Cherbourg, where the fire was extinguished on 8 January, and she remained docked while the ship's owners and insurers debated her demise, eventually resulting in the payment of US$6.8 million to Compagnie de Navigation Sud Atlantique for the loss. In February 1936, she was sold for scrap, and broken up by the firm of Smith & Houston in Port Glasgow.
Characteristics
L'Atlantique displaced between 40,000 and 42,500 gross tons, and was long, with a beam of and a draft of. She was powered by four triple-expansion steam turbine engines with a total of 45,000 shaft horsepower driving four propellers at a speed of. She could carry 1,238 passengers, of which 488 were in first class, 88 in second class and 662 in third class, and 663 crew. Unusual for the time, she was built with very little sheer and camber.
Interior
The ship was built with a largely art deco interior built on an unusual axial floor plan with a wide hallway up to in width on each of the passenger decks and a foyer at the center of the ship three decks high. Interior decorations were largely made of glass, marble, and various woods, making for a more subdued atmosphere than was present in other Compagnie Générale Transatlantique ships like the. The interior furnishings were designed by Albert Besnard and Pierre Patout et Messieurs Raguenet et Maillard.
