SS Nomadic
The SS Nomadic is a tender built for the White Star Line in 1911. The ship was built to ferry passengers, mail and cargo from the port of Cherbourg to the the White Star Line’s Olympic-class passenger liners that were too big to enter the port.
In 1912 the Nomadic transported passengers to the then newest Olympic-class liner, RMS Titanic and was one of the last ships to see the famous and doomed vessel. It continued to serve the RMS Olympic as well as other large liners.
During WW1 the ship was requisitioned by the French government, and she saw service as an auxiliary minesweeper and later a troop transport. Following the war the ship would serve the White Star Line until its merger with the Cunard company in 1934 and it was sold to the Cherbourg Tow & Rescue Society.
In WW2 the ship again saw service first as an evacuation ship and then accommodation ship.
Following the war the Nomadic returned to being tender to large passenger liners as most of the ports capable of handling larger passenger ships had been damaged or destroyed, it served in this role until 1969.
The ship would spend time as a floating restaurant in Paris, France but it went out of business by 2002. In 2006 the Northern Ireland government Department for Social Development bought the vessel and had it returned to Belfast where it had been built.
By 2012 the ship was opened to the public in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter. It is the only White Star Line vessel left in the world.
SS Nomadic
