Nahma was built by the Clydebank Engineering & Shipbuilding Company in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1897 as a private luxury steam yacht for Robert Goelet.

With these ships, she escorted Allied vessels in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as in the Atlantic Ocean between the United Kingdom and Gibraltar.

[4] At about 05:00 on 6 October 1917, the British torpedo boat HMS TB 93 arrived on the scene and accidentally fired one round toward Nahma.

[4] Nahma continued her escort duties through the armistice with Germany, which brought World War I to an end on 11 November 1918.

Operating in the Aegean Sea and Black Sea, she carried relief supplies to refugee areas; evacuated American nationals, non-combatants, the sick, and the wounded from areas of Russia and Turkey affected by the Russian Civil War and the Turkish War of Independence; and provided communications services between ports.

[2] In 1923, Goelet sold Nahma to Jeremiah Brown and Company, which renamed her Istar[2] and registered her under the British flag.

[2] In 1925, Istar was sold to Royal Navy Commander C. L. Kerr, DSO, and Robin Thynne of Southampton, England.

[2] Rather being scrapped, however, she was scuttled in the Indian Ocean 7 kilometres (3.8 nmi; 4.3 mi) outside the harbour at Durban, South Africa, on 28 March 1931.