The Mystery Ship is the torpedo gunboat HMS Spanker, which was laid down at Devonport on 12 April 1888 and launched on 27 February 1889.  She was of 735 tons, had a speed of 21 knots and was armed with two 4.7-inch and four three-pounder guns, as well as having three 14-inch torpedo tubes. 
From 1896 she was tender to the Coastguard ship HMS Alexandra and from 1901 to Revenge. She suffered various mechanical failures and had new boilers in 1893. She suffered engine failure in 1908 and a collision in 1908. She later served as a Fishery Protection Vessel. While working from Newlyn in 1903, she arrested three Breton crabbers for poaching at Scilly, one of the first arrests of its kind. She was converted into a minesweeper in 1914 and was involved in operations against Zeebrugge in 1915. In 1920 she was sold for scrap and broken up.
John McWilliams, St Ives, Cornwall

Can anyone identify this wrecked ship? The photograph was taken on the Tail of the Bank, river Clyde by Scotavia Images, but what happened to the ship? And where and when was she built? Who was she operated by and what has happened to her since the photo was taken?

The November 2012 mystery ship is Takliwa, which was built in 1924 by Barclay Curle and Co, Glasgow for the British India Steam Navigation Co Ltd. She was of 7,936 gross and 3,742 net tons, had a speed of 17 knots and was powered by twin screw triple expansion engines.

Accommodation was provided for 56 first, 80 second and 3,302 deck (unberthed) passengers. The second of three sisterships (the other two were Tairea and Talamba), she was employed on the India, China and Japan service and on the Bombay-East Africa service from 1933-39.

Requisitioned during World War II, she was involved in the Singapore evacuation in January 1942 and then in both the Madagascan and Sicilian landings. On 15 October 1945 she was taking 800 Indian ex-prisoners of war from Hong Kong to Madras when she ran into a gale in the Bay of Bengal and grounded on Great Nicobar Island. Although all on board were rescued, a fire broke out in the stoke hold and she was gutted, and was abandoned as a total loss.  The photograph was almost certainly taken in Dar-es-Salaam. 

A. J. Smythe, Rayleigh, Essex

The mystery ship is the 1949-built Zhe Hai 106 of the China Ocean Shipping Co, People’s Republic of China. She was built by Wm Doxford & Sons of Sunderland, yard no.789, for the Hain Steamship Co as Trelissisk (5,386gt). In 1963 she was sold to Chiao Mao Enterprises Ltd as Kinross, and registered in Hong Kong. In 1974 she was sold again to a Chinese owner, along with many other ships of this and earlier periods for the coastal coal trades along the Chinese coast. She was registered in Shanghai. After 1997 her fate, and that of others, was unknown, but more than likely she was scrapped in China. The photograph may have been taken in the Yangtse/Shanghai area. That company or its subsidiaries started acquiring second-hand tonnage in the 1950s, so one can assume the 106 was built in the late 1940’s.

Mike West
Newton Abbot, South Devon

Can anyone identify this vessel, which looks like some kind of warship. Where and when was she built? Where was the photograph taken? What was she used for and how was she operated?