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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

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Site News: January 14, 2025

The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 94,957 vessel histories (with 16,337 images and 13,935 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters).

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My thanks to Ray Warren who is beginning a long process of filling gaps in the photo record of the vessel histories in the vessel database. Ray has been documenting the ships of Vancouver Harbour for more than 60 years.

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Thanks to John Spivey who is beginning his 4th year of fact checking all of the entries in the vessel database.

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