Anselm was a cargo and passenger steamship built by Workman, Clark and Company in Belfast for the Booth Line service between Liverpool and the Amazon ports in Brazil.

[1] The ship had one propeller powered by a vertical triple-expansion steam engine made by the shipbuilders, rated at 819 nhp[1][2] or 4,500 ihp (3,400 kW) and supplied by four coal-fired cylindrical boilers, giving her a service speed of 12 knots (22 km/h).

[2][5][a] Her maiden voyage, from Liverpool to Manaus, with calls at Le Havre, Lisbon, Funchal and Belém, began on 29 March 1905.

[2][5] On a later voyage, inbound to Manaus from Madeira, Anselm collided in the River Amazon with her running mate, Booth Line's Cyril, on 5 September 1905.

[13] In the First World War Anselm was chartered as a troop ship for a number of voyages to France in 1914–15 before returning to her regular liner service.

[2][5] In 1922 Argentina Compañía General de Navegación SA (ACGN) bought Anselm and renamed her Comodoro Rivadavia, after Patagonia's main port.

[15] In 1923 Comodoro Rivadavia was put into service mainly on the Buenos Aires – Comodoro Rivadavia route alongside the passenger-cargo liner Buenos Aires (formerly Hamburg Süd's Camarones ex-Taquary), and replacing the same owner's Presidente Mitre ex-Argentina, which was sold to Chilean buyers.

[19] In the decline in the Patagonian trade in the 1930s the main passenger route was reduced to a one-ship service, with first the Buenos Aires and then the Comodoro Rivadavia being withdrawn, with maintenance and painting being carried out during lay-up.

In 1944 she was renamed Rio Santa Cruz, and later reduced to cargo-only service[18][20] At around 7am on 7 May 1952, en route from Puerto San Julián to Buenos Aires, Rio Santa Cruz suffered a major boiler explosion off Cabo Blanco, between Puerto Deseado and Comodoro Rivadavia, just as a storm was approaching.