The general cargo ship was built in 1911/12 by the Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft for the Hamburg shipping company A. Kirsten and was used on the Kirsten Hamburg-London route from 1912 until the beginning of the First World War. At the beginning of the war the ship was requisitioned by the Navy and converted into a hospital ship. On October 17, 1914, the Ophelia ran out to search for the sea battle off Texel and was taken as a prize by the British warship Meteor the following day .
From the British side, the transmission of encrypted radio communications and the throwing of ship's papers overboard before the inspection by the British warship, the high number of signal pistols on board the ship and the role of the Ophelia as a hospital ship, which had not yet been communicated at the beginning of the war, were given as reasons for the award. The German side protested and insisted on the status of the Ophelia as a hospital ship, but a British prize court awarded the ship to the British. Britain renamed the ship Huntley and used it to transport fuel from Portishead to Boulogne. On 21 December 1915, the German submarine torpedoed UB 10 the Huntley near the lightship of Boulogne, where the ship sank and two crew members were killed.