Site Navigation:

Site Search:

Looking for more? Search for Articles on the Nauticapedia Site.

The Steamer Rupert City

by John MacFarlane 2019

Rupert City

The Steamer Rupert City (Photo by Cyril Tweedale.)

Cyril Tweedale, took a lot of nautical photographs and saved them in family albums. Some of the images were recently sent to me. They each tell short stories of the British Columbia coast.

In 1886 the steamer Rupert City was built as the Powhatan at Barrow–in–Furness, Lancashire UK by the Barrow Shipbuilding Co. She was 310.3’ x 38.1’ x 25.2’ iron–hulled and powered by a quadruple cylinder triple–crankshaft steam engine. In 1909 she was renamed as the Prince Rupert. In 1910 she was renamed as the Rupert City and in 1914 as the Chinto Maru.

In 1886–1905 she was owned by Mediterranean and New York Steamship Co. In 1905–1912 she was owned by Watts, Watts, and Company (Britain Steamship Co.) In 1909–1912 she was owned by Mackenzie Brothers Steamship Co. In 1912–1913 she was owned by Marine Transportation Co., Vancouver BC. In 1913–1914 she was owned by N. Hardie (Dodwell & Co.). In 1914–1917 she was owned by S. Tsunaakira, Suda T. Darien.

In 1909 she was on direct service between Vancouver and Prince Rupert BC. In 1910 she was in the coal trade between BC and Australia. In 1913 she was reported as sold into the China coastal service. On January 4, 1917 she was sunk by the submarine U–79 torpedoed southeast of Cabo de Sao Vicente, Portugal.


To quote from this article please cite:

MacFarlane, John (2019) The Steamer Rupert City. Nauticapedia.ca 2019. http://nauticapedia.ca/Gallery/Rupert_City.php

Nauticapedia

Site News: May 08, 2024

The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 92,807 vessel histories (with 15,646 images and 13,442 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,616 entries (with 4,013 images).

In 2023 the Nauticapedia celebrated the 50th Anniversary of it’s original inception in 1973 (initially it was on 3" x 5" file cards). It has developed, expanded, digitized and enlarged in those ensuing years to what it is now online. If it was printed out it would fill more than 300,000 pages!

My special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into a semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.

Also my special thanks to my volunteer content accuracy checker, John Spivey of Irvine CA USA, who has proofread thousands of Nauticapedia vessel histories and provided input to improve more than 11,000 entries. His attention to detail has been a huge unexpected bonus in improving and updating the vessel detail content.

© 2002-2023