The Ramsey

[historydavid]

Hope someone can help on this:-

I have a note that describes "The Ramsey" as an ABS.

Not sure what this stands for: could it be armed boarding ship?

Ship was apparantly lost on 8 August 1915. How and were there any casualties?

Thanks

historydavid

[Michael Lowrey]

historydavid,

Close, The Ramsey was an armed boarding steamer, sort of the junior varsity version of an armed merchant cruiser. The Ramsey was sunk in a gun action by the German auxiliary minelayer SMS Meteor off the Moray Forth. The loss of life on the 1862 grt armed boarding steamer was substantial as Meteor was the better armed vessel; The Ramsey's commanding officer plus over 50 of her crew were killed.

The Meteor was intercepted before she could make it home and scuttled with her crew returning to Germany. This was Meteor's second cruise, her first was to the White Sea. All told, she sank vessels (including 14 by mine) of 29,845 grt, damaged three ships for 22,628 grt plus taking a Swedish ship as a prize.

Best wishes,

Michael

[manxman]

HMS Ramsey was an Isle of Man Steam Packet (IOMSPco) vessel which was taken up by the Navy as an armed boarding vessel. See below address for further details.

Ramsey is a town on the IOM.

There is a current HMS Ramsey which is a mine counter measures vessel. The ship has associations with both the town and the IOMSPco

http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fu...f1923/index.htm

[historydavid]

I've now got all the info I need on this subject, thanks to all the Pals who responded to my cry for help.

Best wishes to you all

historydavid