An item referred to the magazine le Yacht reporting that some months before the French navy acquired an oil tanker freighter for 3.200.000 francs sold by the firm Moss&Co. of Liverpool. She sailed one year as the Lucellum but was now renamed in French service as the Garonne. Her commanding officer lieutenant Guézenuec took her from Amsterdam to Cherbourg where she was fitted out and from she departed towards Constantza. With a measurement of 11.000 tonswere her dimensions 120 x 15,40 x 8,40 metres, was her cruise speed 10 miles and her cargo capacity 7.000 tons. Her single engine provided 2.750 hp and further more she had two coal or mazout fired boilers. Her crew numbered 54 men with as officers a lieutenant 1st class and one second class and a doctor. There were 16 tanks divided in 3 groups, divided by heavy bulkheads. Each tank was fitted out with a heating pipe and a drain pipe for of the gasses. Two steam pumps with a capacity of 150 ton each hour were used for piping the oil or mazout out of the tanks. When the negotiations started between the French navy and the firm the ask price was around one million lower although at that moment reasonable. The department wanted to wait because she found that she was to expensive. Since then the freight prizes for oil increased with as result a higher prize (1)
Note
1. The Dutch newspaper De Tijd dated 1 November 1936 reported that the tank steam ship Lucellum of 5.184 ton built in 1913 for account of H.E.Moss&Co. at Liverpool was sold to Frank Rijsdijk’s Industrieele Onderneming at Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht to be broken up.