The RMS Ionic (from 1900: Sophocles ) of the shipping company White Star Line , built in 1883 by Harland & Wolff in Belfast, was a slightly larger version of the Asiatic and its sister ship Doric . She was a fast freighter with limited passenger accommodation and was initially chartered with the Doric and the Coptic by the New Zealand Shipping Co. The maiden voyage went from London to New Zealand. She covered the route around the Cape of Good Hope in a record time of 43 days, 22 hours and five minutes. On February 8, 1893, after leaving Cape Town, the propeller's drive shaft broke. The ship had to begin the return under sail before it could be towed to Cape Town from the ship Hawarden Castle . In 1894 she was renovated in Belfast, with a new drive, which increased her speed from 14 to 15 knots.
In 1899, on her last trip on the London - Cape Town - New Zealand route, she transported cavalry horses for the Boer War . In April 1900 she was chartered to the Spanish government to repatriate troops from Manila after the war with the United States. In the same year it was sold to the Aberdeen Line and renamed Sophocles . After her last voyage on August 21, 1906, she was scrapped in 1908.
