July where contractors fitted her with troop accommodations. Otranto departed on 8 August for her first trooping voyage and arrived at Liverpool on 20 August where she remained for several days before arriving back at New York City on 8 September. Last voyage and sinking Serving as the convoy flagship for Convoy HX 50, Otranto departed New York on 25 September. Six days later, on the evening of 1 October, the ship accidentally rammed the French fishing schooner Croisine off Newfoundland while the latter was returning home to St. Malo with a full load of cod. The fishing boat passed down the liner's port side and its masts destroyed some of the liner's lifeboats on that side. Captain Ernest Davidson, who was also commodore of the convoy, ordered the convoy to continue while Otranto stopped to rescue the 37 survivors. The derelict Croisine was now a menace to navigation and Davidson ordered his gun crews to sink her later that evening. The liner caught back up with the convoy by daybreak. The following day, the first death from the influenza pandemic occurred and the soldier was buried at sea. Only one other flu death aboard Otranto is recorded, but others may have occurred before she met her end. The convoy encountered a strong storm on 4 October that got even stronger over the next several days; by the morning of 6 October it was assessed as a Force 11 storm on the Beaufort scale with mountainous seas. The storm forced the British destroyers that were to rendezvous with them back into port on 5 October and the last American escort departed at 06:00. The weather prevented accurate navigation and the convoy was forced to proceed by dead reckoning. The ship's officers were uncertain if they were off the northern coast of Ireland or the western coast of Scotland. When dawn broke it revealed a rocky coastline to their east, just ahead of the convoy. Most of the ships correctly thought this was the Scottish coast and turned south, but Otrantos Officer of the Watch thought that it was the Irish coast and turned north. , another liner turned troopship, was only about a half-mile (0.80 km) to Otrantos north and the turns placed them on a collision course. Both ships attempted to avoid the collision, but their efforts cancelled out and Kashmir rammed Otranto on the port side amidships, a