shipstamps.co.uk

1936-1941. Built in 1911 by the Greenock and Grangemouth Dockyard Co. Ltd., Grangemouth, as the Dorothy Hough for Samuel Hough, Ltd., her name was changed to Southern Coast after the amalgamation which formed Powell, Bacon and Hough Lines Ltd. and subsequently Coast Lines Ltd. For many years she was well-known on the Liverpool-London service of Coast Lines. Sold to the Falkland Islands Company in 1936, she was renamed Lafonia. A steel screw steamer of 1,961 gross tons, 1,228 net, she had a length of 283 ft. 3 in„ a breadth of 36 ft. 1 in., a depth of 19 ft. and draft of 18 ft. 61/2 in. Her triple-expansion machinery developed 249 nhp.
Her service for the colony consisted of a mail and cargo service to Montevideo and Punta Arenas, with occasional voyages to Brazil, South Georgia and Europe. In 1941 she was requisitioned for war service, but sank the following year after a collision in the North Sea. SG335A

#330, 2 boilers, engine built by John G. Kincaid & Co., Greenock, 12 kn. IMO.131348, Callsign GRQY.
On the 26th March 1943 collided with the ss COMO, off the North East coast of England, the LAFONIA sank in less than 3 hours with the loss of 1 life: quartermaster Jim Brown. (55º 21’ N. 1º 22’ W.)
(Falkland Islands 1982, 5 p. StG.431)