As Seeadler she had a successful raiding career, capturing and sinking 15 ships in 225 days until she was wrecked, in 2 August 1917, in French Polynesia.

The ship was launched as Pass of Balmaha by Robert Duncan & Company, Port Glasgow, Scotland, on 9 August 1888 as a steel-hulled ship-rigged sailing vessel measuring 1,571 gross register tons (GRT).

[2][3] In February 1908, Pass of Balmaha was sold at Leith by Gibson & Clark for £5,500 to The River Plate Shipping Company Ltd of Montreal.

The British captain found reason for suspicion, and ordered Pass of Balmaha to sail to Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands for further inspection.

To avoid being impounded, Scott hid the British prize crew in the hold and replaced the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes.

The commander of U-36, Captain Ernst Graeff, was not entirely convinced by this ruse and ordered Pass of Balmaha to sail for Cuxhaven for inspection.

[12] By 1916 the Allies had blockaded German warships in the North Sea, and any commerce raiders that succeeded in breaking out lacked foreign or colonial bases for resupply of coal.

These weapons were rarely fired, and many of the 15 ships encountered by Seeadler were sunk with only one single accidental casualty on either side during the entire journey.

The ship was disguised as a Norwegian wood carrier and succeeded in crossing the British blockading line despite being boarded for an inspection.

The ship needed maintenance so that her hull could be scraped clean but she was too big for Mopelia's harbour and so had to lay anchor outside the reef.

A small French schooner Lutece, of 126 tons, anchored outside the reef, lured to the island by the idea of salvaging the wreckage of the Seeadler.