SS Coptic (1881)

Coptic
History
United Kingdom
Name:	Coptic
Owner:	Oceanic Steam Navigation Company
Operator:	White Star Line Occidental & Oriental Steamship Co. Shaw, Savill & Co.
Port of registry:	London
Route:	Liverpool–New York (1881) San Francisco–Hong Kong (1882–1883) Outbound: London–Plymouth–Tenerife–Cape Town–Hobart–New Zealand (Port Chalmers, Lyttelton, Wellington and/or Auckland; Napier occasionally); Inbound: Cape Horn–Montevideo–Rio de Janeiro–Tenerife–Plymouth–London (1884–1895).
Builder:	Harland & Wolff, Belfast
Yard number:	142
Launched:	10 August 1881
Acquired:	9 November 1881
Maiden voyage:	16 November 1881
Out of service:	30 October 1906
Fate:	Sold December 1906
United States
Name:	Persia
Owner:	Pacific Mail Steamship Company
Port of registry:	London
Route:	San Francisco-Hong Kong
Acquired:	December 1906
Homeport:	San Francisco
Fate:	Sold 1915
Japan
Name:	Persia Maru
Owner:	Oriental Steam Ship Co. (Toyo Kisen Kabushiki Kaisha)
Port of registry:	Yokohama
Route:	Yokohama–San Francisco–Hong Kong (1915–1922) Yokohama-Netherlands East Indies (1922–1924)
Acquired:	1915
In service:	1915
Out of service:	December 1924
Fate:	Scrapped at Osaka 1926
General characteristics
Tonnage:	4,448 GRT 2,670 NRT
Length:	430 ft 2 in (131.11 m)
Beam:	42 ft 2 in (12.85 m)
Depth:	31 ft 6 in (9.60 m)
Propulsion:	As built 2 × 2-cylinder compound steam engines Single screw From 1894 Harland & Wolff triple expansion steam engines
Speed:	13 kn (24 km/h; 15 mph) (as built)

SS Coptic was a steamship built in 1881, which was successively owned by the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and the Japanese Oriental Steam Ship Co. (Toyo Kisen Kabushiki Kaisha) before being scrapped in 1926. She was filmed by Thomas Edison in 1897 in one of his early movies. The movie is currently stored in The Library of Congress, archive.org and other internet archives.

A sister ship to SS Arabic, Coptic was built at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, for service with the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company's White Star Line. Launched on 10 August 1881, she was delivered on 9 November 1881 and made her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York on 16 November 1881 under the command of Captain Edward J. Smith, who later was the captain of RMS Titanic) on her disastrous 1912 maiden voyage. On the return voyage, a hurricane stove in several of her lifeboats and drowned two seamen who were swept overboard. On 11 March 1882, she sailed from Liverpool to Hong Kong via the Suez Canal, chartered to the Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company for service between San Francisco, California, and China. As Occidental & Oriental already had numerous vessels on that run, she was briefly chartered by the New Zealand Shipping Company while the latter′s own ships were under construction.

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