SS Asiatic (sometimes operated as the RMS Asiatic) was a steamship operated by the White Star Line from 1871 to 1873, a sister ship to Tropic. Sold off after only two years, she was renamed SS Ambriz, and eventually was wrecked in 1903.
Ship history[]
Asiatic was built as a passenger-cargo ship during the transition from sail to steam power, so she was fitted with three fully rigged masts in addition to her two-cylinder compound steam engine manufactured by Laird Brothers of Birkenhead, England. In addition to cargo, she could carry up to 10 passengers. She was launched by Thomas Royden & Sons of Liverpool on 1 December 1870, and the White Star Line bought her in early 1871. She operated first in the Calcutta, India, trade, but transferred to the South American route in 1872 under charter to the Lamport & Holt Line. From February 1873 she sailed to South America for the White Star Line. None of these enterprises proved profitable, and following the loss of the Atlantic in April 1873, the ship was sold to the African Steamship Company to raise additional capital.[1]
Renamed Ambriz, she operated on the West African route from September 1873. In December 1883 she was refitted and re-engined, and from 1894 she served on the Liverpool–New Orleans cotton route. Ambriz was sold in 1896 to the Cie Française Charbonnage et de la Batelage ("French Coaling & Shipping Company"), for which she served as a coal depot ship, regularly sailing from her base at Madagascar to Europe to replenish her coal supply. She was wrecked off the coast of Madagascar in February 1903.