The Esso Northumbria was the first in a series of Very Large Crude Carrier ships, built by Swan Hunter at Wallsend in 1969. At the time, she was the largest vessel to have been built in Britain.

The sinking was a major factor that brought the United States in to the war in 1917It was one of four that drove RMS Lusitania across the Atlantic. Lusitania and her sister-ship Mauretania were ...