The SS Asia was a passenger steamship and package freighter of the Northwestern Transportation Company. She was 136 feet (41 m) long and had a beam of 26 feet (7.9 m). Launched at St. Catherines, Ontario in 1873, she was built as a canaller, a vessel designed for use in the Welland Canal and other enclosed watercourses of the day. She was converted by her owners for services in the open Great Lakes. Heavily-laden and top-heavy with freight, she sank near Lonely Island in Georgian Bay on 14 September 1882 with a loss of 123 lives. The doomed vessel had been fitted with flimsy lifeboats, which repeatedly overturned in the heavy seas. A lifeboat that had originally saved 18 officers and passengers from the foundering Asia then capsized over and over in storm conditions, leading to the deaths