Built as a steel cargo vessel under yard No. 558 by the yard of Russell & Co., Port Glasgow for the Hong Kong Navigation Co. Ltd., managed by A.Weir & Co., Glasgow, U.K.
1905 Launched under the name TINHOW.
Tonnage 1.510 gross, 902 net. Dim. 249.5 x 38.0 x 17ft.
One triple 3 cyl. expansion steam engine, 211 nhp. Manufactured by Rankin and Blackmore at Greenock.
March 1906 delivered to owners.
The TINHOW was one of the first ships of this company to load copra in the Solomon Islands.
1913 Sold to Sobrinos de Herrera S en C, Havana, Cuba, renamed CHAPARRA. (there was a sugar company in Cuba named Chaparra Sugar Co., most probably the vessel was owned or chartered by this company.)
1916 Sold to Empressa Naviera de Cuba S.A. at Havana, not renamed.
She was lost on 27 October 1918 on a voyage from Cardenas, Cuba to New York, loaded with sugar.
She struck a mine, laid by the German submarine U-117 on 13 August, in a position 70-mile se off Barnegat lightship, New Jersey.
According a divers web site, the wreck lays 8½ mile SE of Barnegat inlet, in a depth of 80 feet, and she is in a scattered condition.
Solomon Islands 1984 15c sg520, scott?
Source. Bank Line 1885-1985 by H.S.Appelyard. Register of Merchant Ships Completed in 1906.