SS Akaroa was a UK steam ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship.

In 1932 Euripides passed to Shaw, Savill & Albion Line who had her refitted and renamed her Akaroa.

Harland and Wolff built Euripides on its slipway number nine[1] in Belfast, launching her on 29 January 1914 and completing her on 6 June.

As built, her tonnages were 14,947 GRT, 9,399 NRT[3] and about 25,000 tons displacement,[4] and she was the largest ship in Aberdeen Line's fleet.

The combined power output of her three engines was rated at 1,401 NHP[3] and gave her a service speed of 15 knots (28 km/h).

[14][15] Euripides embarked elements of the First Australian Imperial Force at Brisbane on 24 September 1914 and at Sydney on 18–29 October.

[15] By 1930 Euripides was equipped with wireless direction finding apparatus[3] and her call sign had been changed to GMLP.

[20] On 20 July 1931 the Royal Mail Case opened at the Old Bailey, which led to the collapse of White Star Line's parent company.

[15] Shaw, Savill and Albion renamed the ship Akaroa and transferred her to its service between Southampton and New Zealand via Curaçao and the Panama Canal.

It included a month in New Zealand in which Akaroa called at Auckland, Wellington, Lyttelton and Port Chalmers, and shore excursions arranged with the aid of the NZ Department of Tourism.

[26] On 1 September 1939, the day the Second World War began, Akaroa left Southampton for New Zealand as normal.

She reached Auckland on 8 October,[27] where her passengers presented her Master, William Horation Hartman, with a silver salver in commemoration of "a notable and perilous voyage".

[citation needed] On her return voyage after calling at Curaçao on 30 November she diverted to join Convoy HXF 12 from Halifax, Nova Scotia for her eastbound crossing of the Atlantic.

In the course of the war she used different UK ports including Avonmouth, Belfast Lough, Cardiff, Falmouth, the Firth of Clyde, Liverpool, Milford Haven, Newport and Swansea.

[27] In Convoy HX 206 in September 1942 Akaroa carried 300 passengers eastbound across the North Atlantic,[28] despite having berths for only 200.

After the USA entered the war in December 1941, various convoys were introduced along the East Coast of the United States and across the Caribbean Sea.

Akaroa sailed in some of these convoys, which involved diversions via Guantánamo Bay, New York or Key West.

On 10–11 March a wolf pack of nine U-boats attacked HX 228, sinking four merchant ships and the destroyer HMS Harvester.

[27] In the second half of 1945 Akaroa was overhauled and refitted on the River Tyne and returned to service between Britain and New Zealand.

[15] More of its cabins were made single-berth, more were given en suite bathrooms,[32] and its total number of berths was slightly reduced to 190.