Mahronda was built in 1905 by Harland & Wolff of Belfast, at a cost of £79,000.
She was one of Brocklebank's early steam ships and carried a quadruple expansion steam reciprocating engine by Harland & Wolff.
She entered service in August 1905 and at the time didn't have the broad white banded hull paint job.
She had a chequered career beginning in May 1917 when she grounded on Daedalus Reef in the Red Sea and had to be towed into Port Sudan for repairs. On August 4th on her next trip out to Calcutta she was shelled by the German submarine U 155 in the Atlantic.
In 1923 she was sold to Hvalfangen A/S Rosshavet of Sandefjord and renamed Sir James Clark Ross and converted into a whale factory ship. In 1930 she was replaced by a new ship in the fleet and was sold on to Copenhagen under the name of Fraternitas and was used as a whale factory ship with five catchers in attendance.
She had new owners in 1936 before being sold to the Union Whaling Co. of Durban, South Africa where she had a new and final name of Uniwaleco.
However on March 7th 1942 her long and illustrious life came to an end when she was hit by two torpedoes fired by U 161 which broke her back and she sank in two pieces off St. Lucia.
