Shetland fifie Swan beats Spider T to win National Historic Ships flagship award

Fifie Swan - The Swan Trust

Shetland fifie Swan, winner of the national flagship award

Spider T, winter 2010

Humber sloop Spider T came second in a close contest

The Swan Trust deserve our congratulations on the fifie Swan’s victory in being made 2011 flagship by the National Historic Ships.

Humber sloop Spider T came second in a close contest.

The award presented to Swan goes to the owners of the vessel on the National Historic Fleet with the most impressive seasonal programme of public events in the forthcoming year. The winners receive a special pennant to mark her flagship status, and a grant of £1000 to be spent on the vessel’s upkeep.

A fifie herring drifter, Swan (LK243) was launched in May 1900 at Hay and Company’s yard in Lerwick in the Shetland Isles. Having survived two world wars and then falling into disrepair, this vessel has now been restored to her former glory by a team of dedicated volunteers. The judges were particularly impressed with the breadth of Swan’s summer programme which, starting in her home port, will take her to the Orkneys; along the Caledonian Canal; to Waterford to compete in the Tall Ships Race to Glasgow, and then to Norway, engaging throughout with the large number of young people who will form her crews, and inviting visitors on board wherever she goes.

Swan is one of some 200 vessels of pre-eminent national significance which together form the UK’s National Historic Fleet.

Swan Trust chairman Allister Rendell, said: ‘I am delighted that Swan has won… It is particularly appropriate that Swan has been selected, since the Tall Ships will be visiting Shetland this year.’

Runner-up Spider T receives a £250 grant which will also go towards supporting the vessel and promoting the Flagship of the Year scheme.

National Historic Ships director Martyn Heighton commented: ‘With the flagship award now in its third year, the quality of entries has gone from strength to strength. Swan is a worthy winner in a year of fierce competition.’

Humber sloop Spider T’s owner Mal Nicholson is a regular contributor to intheboatshed.net, usually on the subject  of Spider T herself. For more posts about the Humber sloop, click here.

Can anyone help Keith Johnston find out about his ancestor’s guano trade ships?

Chincha Guano Islands, Peru, engraving published by The Illustrated London News February, 21st, 1863, photographed by Manuel González Olaechea y Franco

This London Illustrated News illustration of 1863 shows ships in the guano trade anchored among the Chinca guano islands off Peru. Image from the Wikipedia and photographed by Manuel González Olaechea y Franco

Regular reader and contributor Keith Johnston has written in to ask whether anyone can help him learn more about one of his forebears, Liverpool shipping agent and ship owner William Cliffe, who specialised in guano.

It seems Cliffe had four sailing barques ranging from 200 to 600 tons gross, all of which are mentioned in the 1883 Lloyds Register of Shipping.

Their trade was mainly in the valuable commodity of guano, ancient nitrate and phosphate-laden deposits of the faeces and urine of bats, seabirds, and seals used as a fertiliser and as an ingredient in gunpowder. It was found on remote islands in low rainfall areas, where there is little rainwater to wash away the nitrate fraction.

In what seems to be a textbook example of how foreign policy is often decided by commercial interests rather than by any sense of right or wrong, during guano’s heyday in the mid-19th century, the United States of America passed a law permitting US citizens to claim any guano island they found for themselves, so long as the guano recovered was to be used by US citizens.

Keith says the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool has been very helpful in tracking down this information, but wonders whether any intheboatshed.net readers have come across the ships listed as belonging to Cliffe, as he would like to try and find more detail about the actual ships, crews, cargos, ports of call and definitely pictures or drawings of them so that he can make models, if at all possible.

The vessels are:

  • Boldonsailing barque, 656 tons net, 689 tons gross, 628 tons under deck; 168.1ft LOA 32.2ft beam 19ft depth, built at Sunderland by Crown in January, 1873
  • Guatemala Packetsailing barque, 201 tons net, 326 tons gross, 110ft LOA 25ft beam 16.5ft depth, built by Harrington in 1852
  • Nimroudsailing barque, 670 tons net, 693 tons gross, 135ft LOA, 30ft beam, 20ft depth, built at Scarborough by Tindalls in 1853
  • Quito, sailing ship, 503 tons net, 503 tons gross, 117.5ft LOA, 28ft beam, 18.7ft depth, built at Sunderland in 1850

If you have any information, please pass it on to me at gmatkin@gmail.com, and I’ll forward it to Keith.

PSHugh Jenkins has written in with some snippets of information about the guano trade that might be of interest. They turned up during his research into a sailing ancestor who worked for a Liverpool guano shipper. Hugh comments that the company mentioned, WJ Myers, was quite a substantial business, and yet today finding any reference to it is now very difficult.

Thanks Hugh!

Developers threaten Appledore’s grade II* listed dry dock of 1856

Lundy ferry Oldenburg in Appledore dry dock 1993

Lundy ferry Oldenburg in dry dock at Appledore in 1993

Appledore's Grade II listed Richmond Dock as it is today

The dry dock as it is today

The good folks of Appledore in North Devon have got in touch to alert intheboatshed.net readers about another cause that’s well worth protecting – the fishing village’s grade II* listed dry dock completed in 1856.

In terms of importance, that grade II* listing puts it on a par with Jacobean mansions and medieval manor houses.

It seems Faversham’s Standard Quay (see the top left) is certainly not the only important maritime site at risk in this country.

The Appledore dock was built for an extraordinary-sounding business first established during the Napoleonic era by local businessman James Yeo. After Napoleon Bonaparte blocked supplies of shipbuilding timber from the Baltic, Yeo had the idea of part-building ships in Canada. They were completed to a seaworthy stage, packed with a cargo of timber, and towed across the Atlantic to Appledore for completion.

It sounds strange now, but it was obviously successful as it continued long after the Napoleons rule in Europe was over.

An organisation known as Celebrating Appledore’s Shipping Heritage (CASH) was set up in 2003 to fight inappropriate housing development on the historic site, which is known as Richmond Dock.

The situation now is that a local developer has appealed the latest refusal of planning ppermission and there is to be a public inquiry. The timescale for submitting alternative plans is mid-May so the clock is ticking is ticking for CASH, which is putting together a fully-costed business plan to place a maritime heritage centre on the site of the dry dock.

This would include the reinstating the dock for boat maintenance and repair and providing boat storage on-site, but also a museum, educational and gallery facilities, rentable office and workshop units, a retail area and a cafe.

As part of its campaign, CASH is seeking expressions of interest from prospective users of the site who may wish to use the dry dock, visit the centre, or work with the trust perhaps by providing help and advice on how to set up a successful heritage centre – and, of course, sources of funds.