Very likely this lady, walking on the deck of the "

" together with an unknown gentleman,
is Margaret Robertson, the eldest of the 3 sisters.

"The

was a

passenger liner and cargo vessel, built in 1888 by Harland and Wolff of Belfast. Originally assigned to the transfer of passenger and mail traffic from the United Kingdom to Australia, she was later assigned to the UK-to-India routes. On 16 March 1912 the ship collided in the Strait of Dover with the Pisagua, a 2850-ton German-registered 4-masted steel barque. She subsequently sank off Beachy Head on the East Sussex coast, with the loss of 9 lives." (quoted from Wikipedia). Today the spot where the ship sank is a diving site.

Right:
This photograph
of the ship (year unknown ) was taken by Allan C. Green (Green Collection, free of copyright)*

Left:
This photograph
of the ship (year unknown ) is by Malcom C. Brodie (Brodie Collection, free of copyright)*

Remarkably, while the Robertson sisters used the "SS Oceana" for their voyage to Europe and other parts of the world, at the same time there were at least 3 more vessels of the same name sailing the seven seas, all of them German. The most important of them was a large steam ship of the

(with predecessor and successor ships of the same name), the second was a 4 masts bark, built in England (Sunderland), which was to become British, again, after the 1st World War as part of war reparations, and third there was a smaller ship serving for tourism purposes within Germany (after the war more were to come, all called "Oceana"). And there was even a whole (German) shipping company called "Oceana" at the time of Grace Robertson. The (German) singer Oceana Mahlmann, though, was not known in those days, yet, like the (British)

cruise liner "

" of our days.

Left: the SS Oceana page from Grace Robertson's photo album.

Above: a

postcard of the "

"