Harland and Wolff - Shipbuilding and Engineering Works

Pacific Steam Navigation Company largest vessel thus far. And their first white hull and passenger ship name which did not commence with "O".

In 1947 the Pacific Steam Navigation Company's Belfast-built motor ship Reina del Pacifico was taken in hand at Queen's Island for a major refit. When the refit had been carried out the liner crossed to the Clyde for speed trials which were completed satisfactorily on 11 September, though slight overheating was observed in one of the four twelve-cylinder, blast injection, trunk-piston diesel engines which had been installed when the vessel was built in 1931.

During the return voyage to Belfast, while speed was being increased, all four engines exploded without warning. In an instant the engine room was a shambles, the lighting extinguished, ladders and access platforms destroyed and the atmosphere thick with smoke. When rescuers entered the engine room they found fires breaking out and bodies everywhere. The appalling result was that twenty-eight people died, either instantly or from their injuries, and a further twenty-three were hurt.

A public inquiry into the disaster concluded that overheating in one of the cylinders had ignited gases in the crankcase of one engine, causing an explosion which detonated her other engines. As the vessel was in the hands of the repairers, almost all those killed and injured were Queen's Island men. Among the dead was Leonard S. Brew, the Victoria Works manager in charge of the engines.

He had been manager of the Londonderry repair works during the war.

1958 Withdrawn from service; broken up by British Iron and Steel Corp. (John Cashmore) at Newport, Mon.