Princess May (steamship)

Princess May aground on Sentinel Island, by W.H. Case.
History
Name:	Princess May (ex Cass, Arthur, Ningchow,Hating)
Owner:	Formosa Trading Company, Canadian Pacific Railway Coast Service, others.
Route:	Coastal British Columbia, Inside Passage
Builder:	Hawthorn, Leslie & Co. Ltd, Newcastle upon Tyne, England
In service:	1888
Out of service:	circa 1935
Identification:	Canadian registry #109860
Fate:	Dismantled
General characteristics
Type:	coastal liner
Tonnage:	1717 gross; 1394 registered tons
Length:	249 ft (76 m)
Beam:	33 ft (10 m)
Depth:	18 ft (5 m) depth of hold
Installed power:	twin triple expansion steam engine, 19", 30", and 50" x 33"
Propulsion:	double propeller

Princess May was a steamship built in 1888 which was operated under a number of different names and owners. The ship is best known for having been involved in a grounding in 1910 which left the ship jutting completely out of the water, which became the subject of a famous shipwreck photograph.

This ship, although it served under other names, is best known as the Princess May. The Canadian Pacific had a fleet of ocean-going ships with names beginning with “Empress". It was decided that the planned fleet of coastal liners (which in 1901 did not yet exist) would have names beginning with “Princess.”Princess May was named after Mary of Teck, who was known as “May”. Later Princess ships were not named after actual princesses, however.

Princess May was built and launched under the name Cass in Hebburn in 1888 by Hawthorn, Leslie & Co., Ltd. for the Formosa Trading Company. Hawthorn Leslie built another ship, the Smith, at the same time for the Formosa Trading Company.

Cass was 249 feet (76 m) long, 33-foot (10 m) beam, 18-foot (5.5 m) depth of hold, 1717 gross and 1394 registered tons. Power was supplied by two triple-expansion engines, each one driving a separate propeller. Each engine had three cylinders, which, ranging from high pressure to low pressure, were 19, 30, and 50 inches (1,300 mm) in diameter. The stroke on all cylinders was 33 inches (840 mm). Steam was generated by three coal-fired boilers. The ship was built with electric lighting installed by Rankin Kennedy of the Woodside Electrical Works, a Glasgow firm.

Cass served in the China coast trade from 1888 to 1901 under a number of different owners and names, including Arthur, Cass (again), Ningchow, and Hating, the ship's name in 1901. During the ship's service on the China coast there was a mutiny on board and the ship was attacked by pirates.

The arrival of Cass and Smith at Taiwan was called the “shipping event of the year” for the China coast. The Formosa Trading Company had been organized by the modernizing governor of Taiwan, Liu Mingchuan, based on the advice of a former manager of the China Merchant Steam Navigation Company. A contemporary source states that the ostensible purpose of ordering the two steamers was modernization of Taiwan, but the actual goal was to compete with the China Merchant Steam Navigation Company and its two allied English companies for the passenger traffic on the Yangtze River and between Shanghai and Tientsin.