The s.s. 'J Y Short' was a single screw steamship built at the Pallion yard of Short Brothers Limited of Sunderland. She was a general cargo vessel 290.0 ft. in length x 39.0 ft. breath x 21.9 ft. depth built for the Westoll Line, also of Sunderland. The vessel was launched in early February 1887, being of 2,217 gross and 1,447 net register tons. [845]

She was completed at a cost of £22,400 (equivalent to £2.9m in 2019 [771]). At the beginning of WWI, she was requisitioned by the Admiralty and in June 1916 deployed as a collier to the Russian Government. On the 3rd or 4th October 1916 she was captured by the U-43 in the Arctic Ocean and sunk by shelling/gun fire when 80 miles east of Vardo, Finnmark, Norway, whilst on passage from Penarth to Archangel, Russia, with a cargo of coal. There were no casualties. [864]