Launched at the C.H.Luhring shipyard, Elsfleth, Germany in 1911 as the gullet schooner Meta and used as a cargo ship between Germany and Denmark. At the beginning of the 1920s she was registered in the French merchant marine register and after sailing for a few years in the north of France, circumnavigated the Iberian peninsula and entered the Mediterranean to reach Tuscany where it was registered with the registration number 481 in the maritime compartment of Livorno, starting to sail transporting talc from Sardinia. In 1924 it was bought by Carlo Pezzica, a marble merchant in Carrara, on behalf of the shipowner Giovanni Marchetti of Carrara. In 1927 a two-cylinder internal combustion propulsion engine was added, but continued to hold the schooner rig with gabbells. In 1937 the new captain and ship owner Ferdinando Gianfranchi (called ‘il liscio”) sold it to captain Giovanni Fanciulli of the island of Giglio.
Until the 1950s between Sardinia and Tuscany active was she in 1957 by the Benetti shipyards of Viareggio converted into a motor ship. The reconstruction included dismantling of the sailing rig, adding a new and more powerful propulsion engine (Ansaldo, a supercharged 4-cylinder 180hp) and of the aft superstructures with four cabins and the control bridge. The only hatchway mast was positioned slightly aft, and a second one was added forward of it. A derrick between the two coats, with the relative branches of prow and stern, was installed to allow the loading of the load. At the stern were added superstructures: three single cabins to starboard and a small kitchen, the mess hall and the cabin usually used by the onboard cook, on the left. Above this structure, the bridge made by a small cabin that housed the wheel of the rudder and aft of it, a small independent divided space that housed the chart and the guard bed. The rudder was modified by inserting the classic “chain ice” system.
Renamed Onice was she sold to the island of Pantelleria (compartment Trapani) as part of the Pantelleria motovelieri that guaranteed the transport of goods of the small island of Sicily. Until 1998 active in this area, initially guaranteeing the transport of raisins, capers and various goods for Naples, Livorno, Tunisia, Malta and later in 1986 ensuring the supply of kitchen gas cylinders to the domestic needs of the island.
In 1998 forced the advanced age of the ship owner and the master and motorist nearing retirement to take the decision to end her activities as a cargo ship., the painful decision of disarmament was taken. In May 1998 the last trip from Pantelleria to Trapani was carried out with only fifty tons of ballast (marble dust) and in the morning of May 28th moored in the Roncilio pier. Laid up until 2016 she got a new chance starting with a restoration. The well known Eye of the Wind was as the Friedrich also built in 1911 sharing with the Meta the same dimensions.
