Rarely can a vessel have been bought, sold and renamed so many times as Claveresk which, in her forty-one years of life, sailed under six names for seven different owners and even served as a wartime blockship.

Built by William Doxford & Sons at Sunderland in 1907 and designed as one of their ubiquitous so-called "turret" ships, Claveresk was completed for the short-lived Claverhill Steamship Company although managed by E. Haslehurst of London. Registered at 3,829 tons gross (2,441 net), she measured 350½ feet in length with a 50 foot beam and was fitted with a triple-expansion 3-cylinder 310nhp. engine also manufactured by her builders. After only one year in service, she was sold to the Sandhill Steamship Company (in 1908) who gave her to B.J. Sutherland of Newcastle to manage and, in so doing, set the pattern for the frequent changes of both owner and name which continued for the rest of her career.

Transferred to new owners in 1910, they sold her in 1920 -- after having renamed her Renfrew the previous year -- whereupon her name changed to Ulvershead. Sold again in 1921, to Peruvian owners who renamed her Mari, she transferred to Spanish registry under the same owners in 1926 who kept her until 1937 when she returned to the British flag with the name of Houstone. Resold the next year to another London company who renamed her Lake Neuchatel, she was then sunk as a blockship at Scapa Flow in 1940 although it is unclear whether she was purchased or simply requisitioned by the government authorities. Unwilling to leave her be, she was rather surprisingly salvaged in June 1948 and taken to Troon where she was broken up.