Controller. The Type B war standard was a two-deck dry cargo steamship. In 1919–20 Lamport and Holt bought nine of them, renamed each of them with a name beginning with "B", and they became the "B-class". The Type N war standard was a dry cargo steamship of fabricated construction. In 1919 Lamport and Holt bought two that Harland and Wolff had been building for the Shipping Controller, and had them completed to L&H's own specification as Nasmyth and Newton. Lamport and Holt also ordered ships built entirely to its specification, starting with the steamship Laplace from A McMillan launched in 1919 and Laplace from D&W Henderson launched in 1920. A McMillan followed these with Lamport and Holt's first motor ships, the Leighton and Linnell launched in 1921 and Lassell launched in 1922. Together these two steamships and three motor ships formed the "L-class", each of which had berths for 12 passengers. D&W Henderson also supplied a larger ship, the Hogarth, launched in 1921. In the war the V-class liners Vandyck, Voltaire and Verdi had all been sunk. Vandyck and Voltaire had each been more than , but Lamport and Holt decided that their replacements should be considerably larger. Accordingly, Workman, Clark & Co launched a new in 1921 and her sister, the new , in 1923. Vandyck was Lamport and Holt's first steam turbine ship. She had four turbines, which drove her twin screws by double reduction gearing, giving her a speed of . However, for the new Voltaire two years later Lamport and Holt reverted to a pair of quadruple-expansion engines, one driving each of her twin screws. This gave Voltaire the same speed as her turbine-powered sister. By 1924 Lamport and Holt's fleet had increased to 50 ships with a combined tonnage of . On 12 November 1928 Vestris foundered in a heavy sea in the North Atlantic about 300 miles off Hampton Roads with the loss of at least 110 lives. Both the sinking and the loss of life were attributed to Lamport and Holt's negligence. The adverse publicity led the company to withdraw its New York – River Plate passenger service. Its ocean liners returned to Britain and were laid up: Vauban and Vandyck at Southampton and Voltaire on the River Blackwater, Essex. The Great Depression that began in 1929 caused a global slump in shipping. Lamport and Holt's parent company RMSP ran into financial trouble