RMS Dunottar Castle
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| History | |
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 United Kingdom
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| Name: | RMS Dunottar Castle |
| Owner: | Union-Castle Line |
| Port of registry: | England |
| Builder: | Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company |
| Yard number: | 348 |
| Laid down: | 1889 |
| Launched: | 22 May 1890 |
| In service: | 1890 |
| Status: | Sunk 35 miles off Cape Wrath with the loss of 15 lives (27 September 1915). |
| General characteristics | |
| Tonnage: | 5,625 GRT |
| Length: | 433 ft (132 m) |
| Beam: | 49 ft 8 in (15.14 m) |
| Draught: | 25 ft (7.6 m) |
| Propulsion: | Single screw |
| Speed: | 17 knots (31 km/h) service speed |
RMS Dunottar Castle was a Royal Mail Ship that went into service with the Castle Line (and its successor, the Union-Castle Line) in 1890 on the passenger and mail service between Britain and South Africa. In 1913 the ship was sold to the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company as the Caribbean. After the outbreak of the First World War she served as HMS Caribbean, first as a troop ship and then as an armed merchant cruiser, until she sank in a storm off the Scottish coast on 27 September 1915.
The Dunottar Castle was built at Govan Shipyards in 1889 by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company for the Castle Line, passing to the Union Castle Line in 1900. She became famous in the 1890s for reducing the voyage from Southampton, England, to Cape Town, South Africa, from 42 days to 17 days and 20 hours. In 1894 she grounded for two tides near the Eddystone Lighthouse. She was refitted in 1897 when the funnels were heightened, her yards were removed and she was given a wheelhouse.
In November 1899 Dunottar Castle was requisitioned as a troop ship in the Second Boer War. She carried General Redvers Buller and 1,500 troops to Cape Town for Boer War duties and on the following voyage carried Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener. In the war she made frequent trips between Britain and the Cape Colony and carried some of the most famous Boer War warriors of the time, including two famous scouts, Major Frederick Russell Burnham and Col. Robert Baden-Powell, as well as a young war correspondent for the Morning Post by the name of Winston Churchill.
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