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RASMARA (1890)
Service dates: 1914-1921
Official number: 97615
Shipping lines: BRITISH INDIA STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY LTD.
Ship type:
Paddle Steamer.
Career
- 09.01.1890
- Launched.
- 25.04.1890
- Ran trials and delivered as Rasmara for British India Steam Navigation Company. At the time of her completion, she was reputed to be the fastest ship trading east of Suez, but this is a claim which is very hard either to prove or refute. The majority of her passengers were deck passengers, who gave her the Burmese name ‘Pan m’yo’, meaning ‘before the flowers fade’ – an allusion to the fact that a girl who put a flower in her hair on leaving Rangoon or Moulmein would still have it fresh on reaching her destination.
- 07.1890
- Entered the Rangoon/Moulmein service au pair with her sister Ramapoora. These are the vessels referred to in Rudyard Kipling’s Barrack Room Ballads: “paddles chunking’ from Rangoon ‘acrost’ the Bay’.
- 24.06.1914
- Takeover of British India Steam Navigation Company by The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company agreed.
- 1915/1916
- Served two brief periods in transport service.
- 1917/1919
- Served under the Liner Requisition Scheme.
- 01.09.1921
- Sold for $8,500 for breaking up, although she found use as a quarantine hulk at Singapore.
- 1926
- Broken up at Singapore.