Built as a steel trawler under yard No 87 by William Hamilton & Co. Ltd., Port Glasgow for the Silver City Steam Trawling Company, Aberdeen.
09 September 1892 launched under the name COOT, named after the seabird Coot.
Tonnage 142 grt, dim. 100.2 x 20.5 x 10.6ft.
Triple expansion steam engine, 45 nhp., and one single ended coal fired boiler supplied by D. Rowan & Sons Ltd, Glasgow.
One deck, three bulkheads.
October 1892 completed, port of registry, Aberdeen, Scotland.
1904/05 Sold to Fiskvei-ihlutafélag Faxaflóa, Hafafnarfjördur (A Olafsson, managers), Iceland. Not renamed fishing No GK 310.
The mechanization of the Icelandic fishing fleet started with the motorboat STANLEY in 1902 and the trawler COOT in 1904.
COOT was the first trawler owned by Icelanders.
The first trawler that was specially constructed for Iceland was JOHN FORSETI in 1907.
COOT operated from Hafnarfjorour, Iceland, in the period 1905-1908.
It was propelled by a steam engine and fished with a trawl.
Earlier attempts at mechanizing the fleet and the trawling fishery had been unsuccessful.
Foreign companies or individuals owned the fisheries.
The prevailing thought at the time was that steam engines in boats had no future. An earlier trawler ANNA BREIDFJORD 1901-1902 was equipped with sails instead of an engine.
An engine was first installed in the STANLEY in Isafjorour in 1902. Ten years later engines had been installed in approximate 400 Icelandic boats.
Both STANLEY and COOT are close to the great political turning point in 1904 when ICELANDIC got home rule.
Icelandic got acquainted with large mechanized fishing ships operated by the British who had around 150 trawlers in Icelandic waters in 1905.
What her fate was, I did not find, but her boiler is now standing by the roundabout on the junction of Reykjavikuregur, Strandgata and Vesthrgata, according a web-site.
Source: copied from Icelandic post. http://www.miramarshipindex.org.nz info received from John Stevenson. Lloyds Register 1910/11.
