Last ditch plea to save historic Falls of Clyde sailing ship in Hawaii harbour

The Harbours Division of the State of Hawaii has declared that the Falls of Clyde, built at Port Glasgow on the lower Clyde in 1878 and now a museum ship in Honolulu Harbour, should be impounded for safety reasons.

Campaigners and owners the Friends of Falls of Clyde (FFOC) fear the Harbours Division intends to sink or otherwise destroy the ship, the last four-masted iron-hulled sailing vessel of its kind anywhere.

The FFOC have been attempting to raise $1.5 million to have the ship put in dry dock and repaired – they have raised a tenth of that sum so far. Rusting of its hull is the main damage, but FFOC vehemently deny that the Clyde-built vessel is unsafe, even 138 years after its construction.

Launched in 1878 from the Russell yard at Port Glasgow, Falls of Clyde was designed by William Lithgow, founder of the famous shipbuilding firm, and was first of the renowned Falls Line of ships commissioned by the firm of Wright, Breakenridge & Co.

A cargo vessel, she sailed to every continent save Antarctica and round both Capes. Latterly she was fitted out as an oil tanker and she carried much-needed kerosene to Hawaii.

In 1922, she was sold to General Petroleum and her masts were shorn into stumps so that she could be used as an oil barge off Alaska to act as a filling station for the fishing ships.

Then, in 1958, General Petroleum decided to end her days, but a group of sailing ship enthusiasts intervened and it looked likely that she would end up in a maritime museum.

Thanks largely to the campaign by journalist Bob Krauss and his fellow sailing enthusiasts backed by donations from the public, Falls of Clyde eventually found a home in Honolulu.

She arrived there in 1963 towed across the Pacific by the US Navy to a state welcome, with helicopters dropping flowers, ships and boats in full bunting and a jubilant public.

Over the next 10 years she was restored with new masts, sails, interiors and was eventually fully repaired with assistance from Sir William Lithgow, the Scottish shipbuilding grandson of her designer.

Refurbished to her former glory she went on display, and was declared an official US National Historic Landmark in 1989. Falls of Clyde is such a familiar sight in Honolulu that she has even featured in episodes of the television series Magnum PI.

Patricia Mirrlees, whose husband is the Nobel Prize-winning economist Sir James Mirrlees is hoping to make people across the globe aware of the threat to the Falls of Clyde.

She told The National: “I first encountered her in 1989 when I started working at the East-West Center, a research centre funded at that time by the US Congress, with an aim to do research on Asia-Pacific countries and have exchanges with them.

“For me, the Falls of Clyde was a bit of home as I am from Ayrshire. I spent a lot of time learning about her history from the archive material in Honolulu.

“When I returned to Scotland in 1993, my farewell party was on the ship.

“She has survived hurricanes, and yes, she is in poor condition, but there are long-term plans to raise the money to have her fixed.

“There have been attempts to scupper her in the past since then but this most recent threat is the most critical.

The State Harbours Division issued a statement: “The Hawaii Department of Transportation Harbors Division (HDOT Harbors) recognises and appreciates the historic and maritime value of the Falls of Clyde, but must meet its duty to protect Hawaii’s largest port and ensure the State’s economy and commerce remain uninterrupted.

“HDOT Harbors attempted to work with the Friends of Falls of Clyde over the past seven years in order to make arrangements to safely berth the vessel free of charge at Pier 7 in Honolulu Harbor.

“The condition of the Falls of Clyde poses an unacceptable risk to navigation in Honolulu Harbor and a safety and security risk to harbor users.

“The Friends of Falls of Clyde were asked to provide proof that they had the resources necessary to restore the vessel to a condition that would allow it to safely berth in Honolulu Harbor. They were unable to meet this request.

“In the interest of preserving Honolulu Harbor, which is a critical entry point for 79 per cent of commercial goods into the State of Hawaii, HDOT Harbors revoked the permit that had allowed the Falls of Clyde to moor at Pier 7 on June 15, 2016.”

They gave FFOC 30 days to remove her and this week have confirmed they will now move to impound the ship. FFOC board president Bruce McEwan denied that Falls of Clyde is dangerous.

He said: “Harbors Division has consistently maintained that the ship is a safety hazard, but they have never given any specific details as to why. In their latest justification, they have used selective misinterpretation of a comment in a report submitted by FFOC.

“I say selective misinterpretation because they have used the term poor condition to mean a safety hazard. Poor condition just means that there are some areas that do need repair, but there is no imminent safety danger as the Harbors Division wants the public to believe.

“In any due process there should be concrete evidence of an allegation, especially in a critical case where there is the potential loss of a very valuable piece of maritime history.”

Hamish MacPherson: Falls of Clyde was a thing of beauty and was the first in a fine line of oceangoing sailing boats

TO understand the rarity of the Falls of Clyde, you need to know that in the late 19th century, less than 100 four-masted iron-hulled sailing ships were built across the world.

The famous Falls Line of Glasgow boasted nine of these ships in total, and were among the most renowned vessels of the kind ever built.

In the 1870s, Matthew Wright and his nephew William Breckenridge joined with a former sea captain, confusingly named Michael Breakenridge, in a partnership that commissioned new ships from Russell and Company which had a shipyard at Port Glasgow.

Russell started there in 1874 with Anderson Roger and William Lithgow, and they brought an almost assembly-line approach to the building of iron-hulled sailing ships.

The first of the Falls Line was due to be called Clyde Falls, but the name was changed to Falls of Clyde shortly before she was launched on December 12, 1878, and a famous lineage was born.

She was a beauty, and descriptions of her in the press at the time noted her sleek lines. Technically she was a four-masted barque rather than four-masted and fully-rigged like six of the line she was built along similar lines of design.

She was also fast for a ship of her tonnage and was credited with being able to sustain an average speed of 15 knots while at sea. The second of the line was the Falls of Bruar which was launched just three months after the Falls of Clyde. She was, if anything, even faster and once held the record for the voyage from Liverpool to Calcutta, achieved in 98 days. Sadly, she did not have a long life, sinking in the North Sea a decade after she was launched, going down with the loss of 24 lives, though five survivors were picked up and landed at Great Yarmouth.

The Falls of Afton, Dee, Earn, Halladale, Foyers, Garry and Ettrick all joined the oceangoing sisterhood transporting cargoes under sail around the world. They were later joined by Falls of Inversnaid, but she was a steel ship and had auxiliary steam power and was thus different, and other later ‘Falls’ were modern steamships.

Each of the sailing Falls would be successful to a greater and lesser degree, with jute importations to Dundee particularly lucrative for their owners.

The Falls of Garry, for example, set records in transporting cargoes to and from India and elsewhere around the world before she was caught in a hurricane in 1898 and wrecked off New Caledonia.

She had a charmed life however, as she was refloated and refurbished and sailed again. The Falls of Afton and Dee were both sunk by U-boats in 1917. The Falls of Clyde, meanwhile, sailed on and on until she reached Hawaii.