 Dacre taxied toward the tugboat, released his torpedo and was then able to take off and return to "Ben-My-Chree".A limitation to using the Short more widely as a torpedo bomber was that it could only take off carrying a torpedo in conditions of perfect flying weather and calm seas, and, with that load, could only fly for a little more than 45 minutes before running out of fuel.On May 1, 1917, a German seaplane loosed a torpedo and sank the British steamship "Gena" off Suffolk.