At 2:45 Shinano Maru sighted a suspicious ship, but the rising moon prevented proper identification. Shinano Maru steamed ahead and properly sighted the opponent at 4:30. It was an apparently unarmed hospital ship, communicating signals to other enemy ships, invisible in the morning haze. The sighted ship turned out to be the Russian hospital transport Orel. The rest of the Russian fleet had already sailed past Orel, undetected by the Japanese. Morikawa settled to search and seize Orel and closed in, only to notice half a dozen other Russian ships nearby. He fled the scene and broadcast the report of the sighting on the wireless. However, grid coordinates reported by Shinano Maru were incorrect by , owing either to Morikawa's errors in dead reckoning or to his misunderstanding of Orels position in the Russian order of battle. The Japanese Third Squadron hurried to the grid square reported by Morikawa, but could not find the trace of the enemy. At 6:05 Shinano Maru reestablished visual contact with the Russian fleet, and continued shadowing it at distance. Russian officers advised admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky to interfere but Rozhestvensky refused, insisting on continuing his course in strict radio silence. At 6:40 Shinano Maru was relieved by . Confusion caused by Morikawa's first report was resolved, and now the Combined Fleet had precise information on the Russian advance. This intelligence ultimately led to the decisive Battle of Tsushima. In the aftermath of the battle Shinano Maru and Dainan Maru located the sinking and forced the captain to surrender it. Shinano Maru took the Russian survivors to captivity in Sasebo. Post-war civilian service Shinano Maru returned to civilian service in 1906, on Nippon Yusen's routes to Seattle. After more modern vessels were available, Shinano Maru was transferred to regional services, especially the Kobe – Keelung route. In 1913, Kuomintang leader Sun Yat-sen sought refuge in Japan, and travelled to Kobe on Shinano Maru. In 1923, the ship was transferred to Kinkai Yusen, a subsidiary company of Nippon Yusen. In 1929, the ship was sold to Hokushin Kisen, and sold again in 1930 to the fisheries company Nichiro, which converted it into a floating factory ship supporting the fishing fleets in the North Pacific processing salmon off the coast of Kamchatka Peninsula. Pressed back into service as a transport in the Pacific War, Shinano Maru was torpedoed January 18, 1944 with moderate damage, then slightly damaged by