Excelsior was a steel‑hulled screw steamer built in 1897 by Gourlay Brothers of Dundee, Scotland, measuring nearly 40m in length and 310 gross tons. She served a variety of coastal trades—initially registered in Sydney and working the north coast of New South Wales—before changing hands several times (including ownership in Papeete and later by South Australian interests) and being repurposed to meet the shifting needs of Australia’s waterfront industries.

After years of service the vessel was converted into a coal hulk, lightering coal to steam‑powered dredges in Port Adelaide; as diesel dredges replaced coal‑fired plant she was laid up and ultimately abandoned at Mutton Cove on the Lefevre Peninsula near Adelaide in 1945.