in the dining room and hostesses were responsible for looking after unaccompanied young women and children. From 1926, the Doric could carry 320 cabin class passengers, 657 in tourist class and 537 in third. During the overhaul which reorganized her cabins, the imposing davits (large cranes capable of lowering many boats in succession, tested in particular on the Britannic of 1915), were replaced by more classic davits of the Welin type, used on the most of the company's liners. History Construction and service to Canada Before World War I, the International Mercantile Marine Co. ordered Harland and Wolff shipyards to build several ships for its companies. The first two, the Regina and the Pittsburgh, started in 1913, were completed after the war and put into service in the early 1920s. The Doric was the third ship built on this model and a fourth, slightly larger, the Laurentic, would follow in 1927. The keel of the Doric was laid long after the war has ended, in 1921, and she was launched on 8 August 1922, and delivered on 29 May 1923. She made her maiden voyage between Liverpool and Montreal via Quebec on the following 8 June. She then remained on this service for several years, but stopped during winter in Halifax, the St. Lawrence River being frozen and impassable. On this route, she was accompanied by the Regina, similar in appearance but operated by another company, the Dominion Line; the two ships were supposed to provide a joint service between the two companies. The Regina however took the colors of the White Star Line in 1925, when it absorbed the remains of the Dominion Line. This period of the Doric's career was relatively unstressed. In 1926, her accommodation, originally intended only for the cabin class and the third class, was revised to integrate a tourist class. On 14 September 1927, the bow of the liner was damaged in Montreal by the British ship Barrie, but rapid repairs enabled her to reach Liverpool without incident. Another incident occurred on 8 December 1930, when the ship, then undergoing maintenance in the port of Liverpool, was the victim of a fire which affected several of her cabins before being brought under control. At the beginning of the 1930s, the Great Depression strongly affected the White Star Line, which had to eliminate its less profitable crossings. This was how the Doric, like the Homeric,