The "Polaris". Passenger steamer built by Gourlay Bros. & Co., Dundee, as S/S Polaris for Finska Ångfartygs Aktiebolaget, Helsinki. 2,018 GRT, 1,150 NRT, 1,280 tdw, length 84.20 m x 11.40 m breadth, 6.30 m draught. She was equipped with a triple steam engine 3 cy. with 3,500 IHP by the shipbuilders and she made 13.5 knots. "Polaris" took 80-1st, 18-2nd and 167-3rd class passengers. In 1914 requisitioned by Russian Govt and on April 5 1915 sold under compulsion and renamed S/S Kretchet. Handed over to the Russian Navy and served as an accommodation vessel for Navy staff in Helsinki. 11.4.1918 Sailed from Helsinki for Kronstadt a few days before the arrival of the German squadron. 1927 Allocated to Sovtorgflot, Black Sea Head Office, Odessa. 1934 Transferred to Sovtorgflot, Far Eastern Head Office, Vladivostok. 1935 Spelling of the name in Lloyd's Register changed to Krechet. 1941 Lying in Hongkong end of December, when Japanese troops invaded the Crown Territory. Sunk on Dec. 25 in a Japanese air attack on Hongkong. Wreck removed after the war and broken up. [Source: The Ships of Our First Century : The Effoa Fleet 1883-1983. Ed. by Matti Pietikäinen & Bengt Sjöström. Keuruu 1983, 231 p. ISBN 951-99438-5-4.]

Postcard picture of the Polaris by courtesy of Aleksi Lindström