The steamship WESER was built for the North German Lloyd (Norddeutscher Lloyd) company, the second of four vessels of the same name owned by the company. Built by Caird & Company of Greenock, Scotland, it was launched on 19 March 1867. She displaced 2,871 tons and was 325 feet in length and a maximum of 40 feet in breadth (99,05 x 12,19 meters) with a clipper bow, one funnel, two masts. Her iron construction and screw propulsion provided a service speed of 11 knots. The ship accommodated 60 passengers in first class, 120 in second class, and 700 in steerage. The crew ranged from 74 to 105. Her maiden voyage began on 1 June 1867 traveling from Bremen, Germany to New York City, United States via Southampton, England. In 1881, she was retrofitted with compound engines by Caird & Company, reducing her coal consumption and increasing her top speed to 13 1/2 knots. The WESER's running mates were America, Deutschland, Hansa, Hermann and Union. Her last voyage on the North Atlantic route was on 13 June 1895, from Bremen to New York to Baltimore. The first of two voyages from Bremen to South America began on 3 August 1895. In June 1896, North German Lloyd sold the WESER to an Italian company for scrapping. She was renamed SERAVALLE for the delivery voyage to Genoa, Italy and flew under the Italian flag. In August 1896, she was decommissioned and scrapped. [Edwin Drechsel, _Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen, 1857-1970; History, Fleet, Ship Mails_, vol. 1 (Vancouver: Cordillera Pub. Co., c1994), p. 39, no. 17 (photograph); Noel Reginald Pixell Bonsor, _North Atlantic Seaway; An Illustrated History of the Passenger Services Linking the Old World with the New_ (2nd ed.; Jersey, Channel Islands: Brookside Publications), vol. 2 (1978), p. 545]. Photograph in Clas Broder Hansen, _Passenger liners from Germany, 1816-1990_, translated from the German by Edward Force (West Chester, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Pub., c1991), p. 31.

(From Passenger Ships of the World Past & Present, by Eugene W. Smith) (Also North Atlantic Seaway Vol. 2, by N.R.P. Bonsor)

Scan, in .JPG format, of a photograph of the Norddeutscher Lloyd steamship WESER (II) in drydock, possibly in Southampton, England. Source: Clas Broder Hansen, _Passenger liners from Germany, 1816-1990_, translated from the German by Edward Force (West Chester, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Pub., c1991), p. 31.