Stella Maris (from the Latin for "star of the sea") was a steamship built in 1882 as the Royal Navy gunboat HMS Starling and converted to steam tug in 1905.
[2] On 6 December 1917, Stella Maris, with Captain Horatio Harris Brannen and 23 others aboard, was towing two scows near mid-channel in the Narrows of Halifax Harbour leading into Bedford Basin.
The crew were in the process of retrieving a ten-inch hawser from the hold to assist a party of volunteers from HMCS Niobe's steam pinnace in securing a line to Mont Blanc.
Stella Maris was severely damaged and thrown up on the beach near Pier 6 with the bow ashore and the shattered stern submerged.
Nineteen of the crew were killed, including Captain Brannen, but five managed to survive and two provided important eyewitness testimony at the investigation into the disaster.