King Orry was a ship, built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead who also supplied her engines and boilers, at a cost of £96,000.

[5] After coaling at Liverpool it was the Master’s intention to make passage direct to Ardrossan in order to bring holidaymakers to Douglas.

[5] As she neared the Isle of Man, the King Orry ran into a bank of fog, which obscured the coast with the added complication that the Foghorn at Maughold Head Lighthouse could not be heard.

[5] Whilst trying to re-set her course, the King Orry ran aground at Cornah (Cornaa, current spelling), on the north-east coast of the Isle of Man, approximately one mile south of Maughold Head.

[5] News of the King Orry's plight was passed by wireless message to the Company’s Headquarters at Douglas by the Mona’s Queen,[5] which shortly passed near the scene inbound to Douglas from Ardrossan, and the Peel Castle and the Fenella were despatched to aid the King Orry.

[5] She was inspected by the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company’s Senior Marine Superintendent, who found only slight damage had been sustained, with only one or two plates being strained.

[5] The next morning, King Orry sailed for Cammell Laird's dry dock at Birkenhead, for repairs to be undertaken, returning to service a week later.

Then, diverted to patrol down the fringe of the German minefield off the Heligoland Bight, she challenged and boarded six ships in one day, and put a prize crew aboard an oil tanker that she then directed to the East Coast of England.

[8] After the Battle of Jutland, the Royal Navy was ordered to undergo intensive gunnery practice, and the King Orry turned to the business of target towing.

She even accompanied the Grand Fleet on exercises and acted as a 'repeating ship', that is, she transmitted the flagship signals to the battle squadron in line astern.

On 17 July, King Orry seized the Norwegian steamer SS Britannic off Utvaer, carrying a cargo of magnetic iron ore from Kerkeness to Rotterdam, and sent her to Kirkwall under an armed guard.

She reached what had been once her regular port of call, but not before a shore battery at New Brighton had put shots across her bow when she failed to give a satisfactory answer to questioning signals.

When the German Empire's High Seas Fleet surrendered in the Firth of Forth on 21 November 1918, she was the sole representative of the British mercantile marine at the capitulation ceremony.

King Orry′s most startling mishap in peacetime was her stranding near the Rock Lighthouse, New Brighton, while entering the Mersey on 19 August 1921.