The four turbines drove twin screw propellers through single reduction gearing and had a total power output of 11,000 shaft horsepower (8,200 kW).

Steam was supplied by two Yarrow water tube boilers operating at 250 pounds per square inch (17 atm).

The Admiralty then requisitioned her and she left Dumbarton on 27 June for Clynder, where she was laid up on the River Clyde, although technically she had been delivered to the Southern Railway on 1 July.

[2] Invicta was allocated the Code Letters GLJG and the United Kingdom Official Number 167606.

[2] She took part in the Dieppe Raid on 19 August 1942, landing soldiers from The South Saskatchewan Regiment on Green Beach.

[2] Invicta was refitted ready for service, but she was bareboat chartered by the Government on 26 December 1945 for use as a troopship, repatriating demobilised troops from Calais to Dover.

Invicta left the River Tyne on 14 October and made her first peacetime crossing of the English Channel the next day,[2] replacing Canterbury on the Dover – Calais route.

On 1 January 1948 ownership of Invicta passed to the British Transport Commission on the Nationalisation of the Railways.

[2] On 26 April 1963 Invicta was the first ship to pass through the western entrance of Dover Harbour after the removal of Second World War blockships.

[10] In 1967 Invicta was repainted into the new Sealink livery, with a blue hull, white superstructure and red funnel with the double arrow logo.

She was sold to Machinehandel en Scheepssloperij de Koophandel, Rotterdam, the Netherlands and left Newhaven on 21 September under tow from the tug Michel Petersen, bound for Nieuw Lekkerland.