Built in 1908 by Germania Werft (Friedrich Krupp) Kiel, for the Hamburg Amerika Linie (now Hapag Lloyd AG) as YPIRANGA.
Cargo/passenger ship, Gt:8142, L:136,68m. (448.4’) B:16,86m. (55.3’) draft:9,07m. (29.8’) 2 - quadruple expansion steam engines:4800 hp. 2 propellers, 14 kn. Pass. 1st class:136, 2nd class:126, steerage:1049, crew:136.
After launching, the YPIRANGA was found to be notoriously unsteady at sea. This was remedied by installing two water tanks near the fore and after masts on the upper deck, connected by a flying bridge. The flow of water between the tanks, controlled by regulating the movement of the air in the side branches, served to steady the ship in rough water, and she gained the reputation of being particularly steady after installation.
In September 1910, she carried the German crews from the battleships SMS KURFURST FRIEDRICH WILHELM and WEISSENBURG back from the Ottoman Empire, after both ships had been sold to the Ottoman Navy.
The YPIRANGA’s 26th voyage in April 1914 was its most notable; from Hamburg to the Mexican port of Veracruz, where it was fined by the U.S. for delivering arms and ammunition to the government of Victoriano Huerta in an event coined the "Ypiranga Incident”.
The ousted Mexican dictator Porfirio Díaz, accompanied by his family, boarded the YPIRANGA at the docks of Veacruz, on Wednesday, May 31, 1911, toward Europe. He was exiled in France.
The YPIRANGA served until 1919 when it was ceded to Britain as war reparations and placed under White Line Management. In 1921 Anchor Line assumed control of the ship and renamed it the ASSYRIA, it was used in their Bombay run. The Companhia Colonial de Navegação, Lisbon purchased the ship in 1929 for £70.000 and renamed it the COLONIAL, for use in their Lisbon-Mozambique/Angola run. In 1950 there were plans to scrap the ship, however, during the trip to British Iron & Steel Corporation, Dalmuir, renamed in BISCO 9, it broke free of its tug TURMOIL and wrecked near Campbeltown, Kintyre, scrapped as lies.
(Guinee Bissau 2001, 750 FCFA, StG.?) North Atlantic Seaway, N.R.P. Bonsor + Internet.