Malabar was one of five iron-hulled vessels of the Euphrates class. All five were built to a design of 360 ft overall length by about 49 ft breadth, although Malabar was very slightly smaller than the rest of the class. They had a single screw, a speed of 14 knots, one funnel, a barque-rig sail plan, three 4-pounder guns, and a white painted hull. Her bow was a "ram bow" which projected forward below the waterline.
The Euphrates-class troopships could each be identified by a different coloured hull band. The Malabars hull band was black. The blue hull band of her sister Euphrates became the standard for all HM Troopships.[1]
She was built to transport troops between the United Kingdom and the Indian sub-continent, and was operated by the Royal Navy. She carried up to 1,200 troops and family on a passage of approximately 70 days.
In common with her sisters, she was re-engined, her single-expansion steam engine being replaced with a Napier 2-cylinder compound-expansion engine in 1873.
On 2 November 1878, she suffered an engine breakdown in the English Channel 17nmi east south east of Prawle Point, Devon whilst on a voyage from Portsmouth, Hampshire to India. She was taken in tow by the steamship Benjamin Whitworth, which with the assistance of two Admiralty tugs took her in to Plymouth, Devon.[2] In 1878 or early 1879 she grounded in Whitsand Bay near Plymouth. Her commanding officer, Captain Percy Luxmoore, was dismissed from the ship and replaced by Captain John Grant.
Between August 1887 and early 1890 she was commanded by Captain Arthur Dalrymple Fanshawe.[3]
She became the depot ship at Bermuda in 1897 and was renamed HMS Terror on 1 May 1905; the name Malabar was later used by the Royal Naval dockyard at Bermuda. Terror was sold in January 1918.