Haapalah / Aliyah Bet

Geula גאולה was a United States Navy patrol gunboat, a former icebreaker, and was used as a United States Navy Coast Guard training vessel for gunnery practice.
Registered name: SS Paducah
Built: 1907, by Gas Engine & Power, Morris Heights
Hillel Yarkoni cites Paducah Geula was built in 1902
Length: 190 feet
Beam: 36 feet
Capacity: 940 tons
Speed: 10 knots
Engine: twin screws, two reciprocating triple-expansion engines.
By the time she was acquired as a Haapalah vessel, she was full of archaic machinery.
SS Paducah, was renamed Geula גאולה, which means Redemption.

In July, 1945, a committee of 19 American Jewish leaders was convened as the Sonneborn Institute.
Shepard Broad enlisted the help of Miamians, and negotiated the purchase of two ships, Paducah and Tradewinds, to break the British blockade of Palestine and transport Holocaust survivors.

In early 1947, Paducah was acquired by the Weston Trading Co., from Mary Eurich Angelo, for $77,500, on behalf of Mossad leAliyah Bet.

In August, 1947, SS Paducah Geulah גאולה sailed from New York, via Bayonne, for refitting, and Horta, Faial Island, in the Azores, to Marseille.