The twin-screw schooner Zoraide lying in the Bay of Naples

Designed by St. Clare J. Byrne for Mr. Thomas J. Waller of Baynard's Park, Horsham, Sussex, the twin-screw schooner Zoraide was built by Earle's at Hull in 1894. Registered at 549 tons (Thames) and measuring 168½ feet in length with a 27 foot beam, she was engined by her builders and rated 100A1 by Lloyd's surveyors when completed. In 1898 she was sold to Comte Vitali of Paris who renamed her Fiorentina II but only kept her a few years before selling her to Duc Decazes, another Parisian, who rechristened her Sylvabelle. Sold yet again in 1909, to Kenneth M. Clark of Sudbourne Hall, Orford, Suffolk, she reverted to her original name of Zoraide and remained thus from September 1914 to March 1919 when she was hired by the Admiralty as an auxiliary patrol yacht armed with 1-12 pdr. and 1-6 pdr. guns. Untraced after her Great War service ended, it is likely she was scrapped due to her poor post-War condition.