RMS Canada

This process took a year to do and by the spring of 1912, she was ready for her sea trials, which took place on April 10th. After successfully passing them, she was finally ready for her maiden voyage set on April 17, but things were about to turn in for the worse when her competitor, Titanic of the White Star Line, struck an iceberg on the evening of April 14th just 20 minutes before midnight and sank in the early morning hours of the 15th with the loss of many lives. Her maiden voyage was postponed until the British Board of Trade could inspect her for any of the defects that the Titanic had.

She finally went on her maiden voyage on May 20th, 1912, a little over a month after the Titanic sank. While her maiden voyage was a success, the grim reminder of the loss of the Titanic still hung on. RMS Canada’s second sister ship the Halifax was launched in the summer of 1912 and in the following year set out on her maiden voyage with a third sister ship, the Vancouver to be launched in late 1913 with her maiden voyage scheduled in 1914.

However, the sailing season was disrupted in 1914 with the outbreak of World War I and the RMS Canada was fitted out to be a hospital ship while the Halifax was converted into a troop carrier (the Vancouver never out on her maiden voyage as she too, like the Halifax, was converted into a troop carrier. It wasn’t until after the war ended that she finally went out on her maiden voyage in 1920.)

RMS Canada continued on throughout the war and after it ended in late 1918, and in the following year while being refitted back into a passenger liner, her boilers were converted to burn oil as it was much cheaper than coal and could be filled into tanks that took less space than coal bunkers in a matter of hours while loading coal through coal hatches on the side of the hull took days.

Finally in 1920, RMS Canada began to set out on her peacetime voyages in the golden age of ocean-going travel long before the jet age.

Now that I've got her back-story out of the way...

This originally was going to start as a comparison picture between Titanic and the vessel that my fursona commands, the RMS Canada, but upon starting it, I decided instead to change it around and just draw up the RMS Canada. This is roughly an updated reference sheet over the one I did last year and seeing how I just did a recent ref sheet for my fursona not too long ago, I figured that his vessel should get an updated one, too.

RMS Canada © me.