Ems, a large vessel registered at 1,829 tons and measuring 270. 1/2 feet in length with a 39 foot beam, was built by Connell's of Glasgow for James Nourse's famous fleet of "coolie ships" in 1893. The so-called "coolie ships" could not have been more different however to the infamous slavers of earlier generations and they provided a valuable and humane system of transporting coloured labourers wherever they were needed around the globe. Nourse had gone into the Indian coolie trade in the late 1850's and, as the years passed, his fleet grew as the business prospered. In the early 1890's, the trade was so good that he ordered five new sister ships from Connell's, one of which was Ems launched in May 1893. She proved a reliable sailer from the outset and amongst her fastest runs were Bristol to Calcutta (87 days in 1898) and New York to Calcutta (103 days in 1903). Her final voyage under Nourse colours occupied most of 1908 when she sailed from Middlesborough to Calcutta (120 days), thence to Demerara (97 days) and lastly to Dieppe (32 days) whereupon she was towed to Hamburg and laid up. Sold in 1909 to the Tonsberg Whaling Co., she changed hands twice more before being acquired by the Argentine Whaling Co. in 1916 at which time she was renamed Fortuna. Retaining her Norwegian captain and crew, she thereafter sailed regularly to South Georgia ferrying stores out and returning with either whale oil or guano. In the autumn of 1927 she arrived in the Mersey with a cargo of whale oil, unloaded and sailed again on 23 October carrying 3,000 tons of coal and 1,000 empty whale oil drums. Five days later she mysteriously caught fire during a gale in the Irish Sea and sank with the loss of five lives.