At the beginning of 1885, the Company de Navigation Est. relied mainly on chartered ships, but in mid-1885 it was decided that a new ship was needed to keep up with the route, as the current ships only carried a limited number of passengers and could not keep up with ships from other shipping companies. The funds for the new ship were mainly provided by the Banque l Indochine (45%), which was one of the shipping company's most important financial backers and which allowed the company to embark on a large and expensive new ship at such an early stage. The remaining 35% of the money came from investors in Marseille and 20% from the shipping company itself. The tender for the ship was won by the Atlantic Navy and Defence Shipyard, on whose Helingen the keel was laid in November 1885, from where it was launched in January 1887 and put into service in August 1887.

The maiden voyage began on 20 August 1887, accompanied by representatives of the Banque l' Indochine and the shipping company's chairman. The ship reached Vung Tau on 16 September where it stayed for 5 days and was visited by Governor Georges Jules Piquet and Emperor Đồng Khánh. Thereafter, the Paris successfully maintained the permanent Indochina liner service with her sister and a few chartered freighters. In 1890 she ran aground at the entrance to the Suez at Port Said for a few days and then went to the shipyard for 3 months for overhaul and conversion work.

In 1898, the Spanish Pacific Fleet approached the Compagnie de Navigation International with an interest in chartering the Paris as an auxiliary cruiser to provisionally replace obsolete cruisers unfit for war. Although this was already confirmed by the shipping company on 15 April in return for compensation in the event of a loss, the colonial administration finaly agreed on 20 April and the ship anchored in Manila on 23 April and was needily and incompletely equipped with guns from the cruiser Velasco which was under repair. During the Battle of Manila Bay on 1 May, the Paris, now Esperanza, was severely damaged by the American fleet and was run aground burning by her crew. She was classified as a total loss. In 1900, the wreck was removed and scrapped, but parts of the ship can still be found on the beach and at the bottom of the Coast.


Technical Data

Land: France

Company: Company de Navigation Est (Compagnie de Navigation International, CNI)
Year of construction: November 1885
Year of launch: January 1887
Commissioned: 10. August 1887
Fate: Burnt out and grounded after the Battle of Manila Bay, 1900 scrapped
Length: 132,4m (434,4ft)
Beam: 14,5m (47,6ft)
Draught: 7,5m (24,6ft)
Boiler: 4x coal-fired dubbleend Ovalboilers 2x coal-fierd singleed Ovalboilers

Coal bunker: 1267t + 278t

Coal consuption: 180t/day
Engines: 1x tripple-expansion Reciprocating engine
Speed: cruise: 14-15kn (25-28km/h 16-17mph)
   max: 15,6kn (29km/h 18mph)
Capacity: 144 Frist Class
     550 Steerage
Crew:  120






Build by: Cubemann2002

Renders by: Axandres274





SS Paris (1887) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.