On the morning of November 8, 1888, the passenger steamer SS Vaitarna departed from Mandvi—a busy port in Kutch, in the Indian state of Gujarat—bound for Bombay. On board were several hundred passengers making what was meant to be a routine journey across the Arabian Sea. By evening, however, a violent cyclone struck the western coast of India. The ship vanished with everyone on board, leaving behind no survivors and no trace of wreckage.
The Vaitarna had been built between 1882 and 1885 by the Grangemouth Dockyard Co. Ltd. in Scotland. It was the company’s first steamship, measuring 170 feet in length and 26.5 feet in breadth, with a Gross Registered Tonnage of 292. In colonial India, such steamers were seen as symbols of progress, linking smaller ports along the western coast with Bombay, the financial hub of the British Raj. Operated by the Bombay Steamer Navigation Company, the Vaitarna carried both passengers and cargo between Mandvi, in the Kingdom of Kutch, and Bombay.
SS Vaitarna in Grangemouth Docks .
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