Built as a steel passenger-cargo vessel under yard No 244 by Caird & Co., Greenock, Scotland for the Royal Mail Line.
13 September 1886 launched as the ORINOCO. (2)
Tonnage 4.581 gross, 2.349 net, dim. 124.87 x 13.72 x 7.75m.
One 3-cyl. triple expansion steam engine, manufactured by the yard, 5.800 ihp., speed 14.5 knots.
Passenger accommodation for 257 first class and 26 second class passengers.
Clipper bow, three masts.
She was the first steel ship built for the company, and also the first fitted out with electric light. She was the last vessel of the company fitted out with cross-yards.
02 December 1886 left for her maiden voyage from Southampton in the West Indies service under command of Captain Jellicoe.
1897 Took part in it Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Naval review at Spithead together with the DANUBE of the same company.
1901 Hull painted white, which in 1903 again painted black with a white band.
21 November 1906 in collision with Norddeutsche Lloyd liner KAISER WILHELM DER GROSSE on the road of Cherbourg during thick fog, the clipper bow saved the ORINOCO from severe damage, but three of her crew members were killed, when a lifeboat capsized. On the KAISER WILHELM DER GROSSE four were killed, and she got severe damage.
After her repair again in the service to the West Indies.
1909 Sold for scrap, scrapped at Bridgeness in the Firth of Forth, Scotland, during the scraping she got on fire in which she badly was damaged.
Bahamas 1984 31c sg 676
Cayman Islands 1989 25c sg 678
Source: Royal Mail Line by Haws. British Passenger Liners of the five Oceans by C.R. Vernon Gibbs.
Some web-sites.