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FAMOUS SHIPS |
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FAMOUS SHIPS |
The INVERCARGILL
The
Glasgow shipbuilder, Robert Duncan, built the INVERCARGILL when he received an
order for six ships for James Galbraith, of the Albion Shipping Company, in
1874. They were designed for the
New Zealand emigration trade and were only 1,250-ton iron clippers but were
beautifully designed and proportioned. Her
measurements were: Length, 239 feet 7 inches; breadth, 36 feet; depth, 20 feet 7
inches.
The
poop of the INVERCARGILL was the long poop of the passenger ship, extending well
forward of the mizzen mast and measuring 70 feet in length.
She had a full set of sails including double topsails, single topgallant
sails and nothing above the royal yards. Their
headsails were large, having a 23 foot bowsprit and 49 foot jib-boom outside the
cap of the bowsprit. She also had a
full set of stunsails including royal stunsails.
Her
maiden voyage was on July 16th, 1874, when she left Glasgow, under
Captain Tilly, with 390 passengers on board.
She made the run to Port Chalmers in 90 days.
On her second voyage, Captain Peacock took her, leaving on July 1st
and took 87 days to Port Chalmers. On
her third voyage, yet another commander, Captain Muir, took over, but the third
time was charm, as Captain Muir stayed with the INVERCARGILL for the next 16
voyages, 9 to Port Chalmers, 5 to Willington, 1 to Auckland and 1 to Lyttelton.
During
these 16 voyages, the ship made steady, clean passages to and from her
destinations. The best outward
passage was 79 days to Wellington in 1888, while the longest was to Lyttleton in
1885, 108 days out. Most of his outward passages were well under 90 days, and his
homeward passages were almost the same, although the homeward voyage was always
the more difficult. He usually
carried between 350 to 400 emigrants on board and always showed them the
greatest kindness. He was a careful
sail-carrier which resulted in the INVERCARGILL never having any serious
accident under his captaincy.
In
the autumn of 1891 Captain Muir handed over the reins of the INVERCARGILL to
Captain Tom Bowling. He would command her for the rest of her life under the Red
Ensign. Captain Bowling was
different from Captain Muir in that he was a driver, a fearless carrier of sail,
with a cold nerve and a superb sense of seamanship.
In his first passage in command, Captain Bowling arrived a Port Chalmers
in January, 1892, 77 days from land to land.
His second trip was in 81 days to
Wellington, being 73 days from land to land.
On all his voyages, the outward passage was never more than 90 days from
the Channel pilot, the ships average under Captain Bowling showing a splendid
average. Again, the homeward
passages were equally good.
Captain
Bowling did have two nasty homeward passages in INVERCARGILL.
In 1901, after experiencing light northerly winds all the way to the
Horn, and taking 53 days to get there, she caught it very hot and rough off Cape
Stiff, where she broached to and had her decks swept.
Off the Burdwood Bank she was again battered by a furious gale, and this
time she lost her second mate, who was swept off the main deck and drowned.
This is the first time INVERCARGILL made the overdue list in her life,
being 130 days out when she finally made her number in the Channel.
Her
only other bad passage was her last under the Red Ensign.
She left Sydney, grain laden, on August 27th, 1904, bound for
Queenstown for orders. She broached
to in a Cape Horn snorter and went over on her beam ends, which resulted in the
grain settling down to port. The
men had to be sent below to shift the cargo up to windward.
Every man aboard worked hard without stopping, knowing that if they did
not correct the problem they may not survive.
The ship was at length righted and she was able to fill away on her
course. This was not the end,
however (when it rains, it pours).
A
week later she was again in trouble. On
the morning of December 8th the wind began to pipe up from the N. W.,
with a very high, confused sea running, but clear weather.
The ship labored heavily, with her main-deck flooded.
The wind and sea kept increasing all day and, at 7 p.m., she was swept
from stem to stern by a huge sea which broke over the port quarter.
The companion-hatch on the poop, together with both compasses and
binnacles, was washed over the lee rail. The
saloon skylight was burst in and tons of water flooded the cabins, lazarette,
sail-locker and even into the ‘tween-decks.
Forward skylights and screens disappeared, and aft the patent log
vanished from the taffrail. The
water was waist deep in the Captain’s cabin, and all hands were turned to
baling it out and getting a sail over the wrecked skylight.
The seas continued to get worse, by this time being very mountainous,
with heavy squalls becoming more vicious and frequent as time advanced.
Towards the end of the middle watch a big sea washed the carpenter out of
his quarters! The carpenter, at
this point, thought the ship was going down.
The
Captain and officers still being below cleaning up, the carpenter so frightened
the man at the helm that he thought he was running the ship under and promptly
put the helm down. The result of
this was the shredding of the foresail, fore upper topsail, fore topmast
staysail and the jib. The main
royal, torn from its gaskets, was soon in tatters also.
The ship lay over until until her lee fore yard-arm was dragging in the
broken water, dipped top a depth of six feet!
The lifeboat on the quarter was lifted out of her davits and swept away.
And this was only the beginning. The
raging seas were soon looting the main deck and nothing could really be done
until the morning showed what the extent of the damage was.
The
topgallant bulwarks were gone, the length of the lee rail; two of the swinging
ports had been torn off their
hinges, and the ends of the running gear, washing back and forth through the
ports, had been cut to pieces; fo’c’sle and poop ladders had gone, along
with many of the poop stanchions, while the racks for the hand spikes and
capstan bars were empty. The
carpenter’s shop was bare, his tools all gone overboard; the galley had been
gutted; the bosun’s locker and paint locker had both been swept clean.
The mate and second mate had lost everything as the contents of their
cabins had been swept overboard also.
Of
course, it was soon discovered that the cargo had again shifted.
The ship lay like a log with her lee rail under water for a day and a
night. At last, at daybreak on December 10th, the wind
dropped and shifted to the S.W., with thick weather. Captain Bowling was obliged to jettison cargo in order to get
his vessel back on a level keel, but at last he was able to gain control and
fill away. Captain Bowling’s
problem know was that he only had an old compass which was badly out of
adjustment, the others having been washed away.
He managed through superb seamanship to bring his ship into Queenstown on
December 18th, 113 days from Sydney.
The
INVERCARGILL was towed round to the Clyde, where she was docked in Princes Dock,
Govan, on Christmas Eve. It cost
1,000 pounds to repair the damages. Soon
after the repair, the Shaw, Savill & Albion Company sold the INVERCARGILL to
the Norwegians. She was
re-christened VARG and, with the slimmest amount of stiffening in the shape of
coal, left the Clyde on February 20th, 1905, for Christiania in order
to load lumber for Melbourne. She
was never heard from again. It was
thought by seaman in Glasgow that she had capsized for want of ballast.