The passenger/cargo ship Ava was built by William Denny and Brothers in Dumbarton, Scotland in 1906. She was launched on Aug. 8 and completed in September of the same year. She was 410' long and 52' wide and registered at 5,076 gross tons. Miss Smart, the niece of a company officer christened her. Designed for the British & Burmese Navigation Company (P. Henderson & Company) of Glasgow for the Rangoon route, she was built with the heat of Asia in mind and therefore had a superior ventilation system installed.

On January 26, 1917 she left Liverpool for Rangoon via Dakar her and the twenty-nine men in her would never be heard from again. Since this was the height of the Great War it is easy to assume she ran afoul of a U-boat or a mine, but this has never been officially confirmed. Researchers have found no entry in a surviving KTB (war diary) of a U-boat which makes a claim of sinking a ship that matches her description. She could have been lost on a mine, but again there is no known evidence of that. Apparently to distress signal was sent, or at least none was received. It is possible that no signal could be sent because she sank so quickly, or that the wireless was disabled for some unknown reason.

After the war was over the official British assessment was that she was lost for unknown causes, but they suspected that she was a war loss. While that would be an understandable conclusion a ship could still sink due to weather or other causes. To this day what happened to the steamer Ava and when it happened is unknown, to the best of my knowledge her wreck has not been found.