RMS Empress of Canada

At 28,574 gross tons, RMS Empress of Canada is the 20,881st largest of the 84,014 vessels in this registry that report a tonnage. The median across that set is 5,994 GT, so this hull is about 4.8 times the typical vessel on record here. The largest measures 499,167 GT.

Among the 665 cruise ships held here, it ranks 297th by tonnage — larger than 41% of that group. Their median tonnage is 43,009 GT, and the largest tenth begin at 143,289 GT. The flag most often flown by this group is The Bahamas (133 ships). The yard that appears most often against it is Fincantieri, with 112 hulls on record.

RMS Empress of Canada was built in 1961, making it 65 years old. It is one of 231 hulls in this registry delivered that year, a cohort whose median tonnage is 844 GT; within it this ship is the 3rd largest. Across the whole of the 1960s the registry holds 4,074 vessels, median 844 GT. The median build year across the entire registry is 1995.

The registry attributes 12 vessels to Vickers, with a median tonnage of 21,207 GT, delivered between 1922 and 2003. See the rest of that yard’s output.

At 198.1 m overall, RMS Empress of Canada is within a metre of the 198.1 m median length for cruise ships on record, with a beam of 26.4 m and a draft of 8.9 m.

IMO numbers are issued in broadly chronological blocks. Within 500 either side of 5103936 this registry holds 14 other vessels, whose median build year is 1956 and which range from 1943 to 1962. That places this hull’s registration in the same part of the series, consistent with its recorded build year of 1961.

Its IMO number, 5103936, carries its own check digit. The first six digits are weighted seven down to two and summed — 5×7 + 1×6 + 0×5 + 3×4 + 9×3 + 3×2 = 86 — and the last digit of that total, 6, must equal the seventh digit, 6. It does, so this number is well formed.