Lawhill

Last updated

Lawhill SLV AllanGreen.jpg
History
NameLawhill
Ordered1891
Laid downJanuary 1892
Launched24 August 1892
Capturedby South Africa on August 21, 1941
FateBroken up 1959
General characteristics
Displacement6.400 ts
Length
  • Total: 382 ft (116 m)
  • Hull: 347 ft (106 m)
  • On deck: 334 feet (102 m)
  • Bp: 317.4 feet (96.7 m)
Beam45 ft (14 m)
Draught24.4 ft (7.4 m)
PropulsionSail
Sail plan
  • 27 (30) sails - 15 square sails,
  • 1 spanker sail and 1 spanker topsail,
  • 6 (9) stay sails and 4 foresails
  • Area: 43,060 square feet (4,000 m2)
Speed17 knots (31 km/h)
Complement2530
NotesRigging: four-masted steel barque rigged with double topgallant sails over double topsails and no royal sails, as a very special feature the topgallant masts attached aft of the topmast

Lawhill was a steel-hulled four-masted barque rigged in "jubilee" or "baldheaded" fashion, i.e. without royal sails over the top-gallant sails, active in the early part of the 20th century. Although her career was not especially remarkable, save perhaps for being consistently profitable as a cargo carrier, in the 1930s Richard Cookson went on board and extensively documented Lawhill's internals and construction, which was later published in the Anatomy of the Ship series.

Contents

Construction

Lawhill was built at the Caledon Shipbuilding & Engineering Company yard of W. B. Thompson in Dundee, Scotland, and launched on 24 August 1892. And it was named after the Law, a hill in the middle of Dundee, Lawhill had been ordered by shipowner Charles Barrie for the jute trade, but only made two voyages carrying jute before the business became unprofitable, and shifted to other cargoes.

Service

Lawhill at Gravesend in 1934 StateLibQld 1 115888 Lawhill (ship).jpg
Lawhill at Gravesend in 1934

During the 1890s, a demand was developing for kerosene in the Far East, which could be more efficiently carried by sail at the time (the Falls of Clyde would take up this unusual trade several years later), and on August 31. 1899 Lawhill was sold to the Lawhill Sailing Ship Co. Ltd. (F. E. Bliss, manager), London, together with her sistership Juteopolis. Captain John C. B. Jarvis of Dundee, inventor of the eponymous brace winch, was given command of the ship (September 1, 1899 - January 21, 1911). In June 1900 the barque was transferred to the Anglo-American Oil Company. She made nine voyages carrying oil and other cargoes, then the development of storage tank capacity reduced demand, and Lawhill went, again together with her sistership Juteopolis , to Geo. Windram & Co. of Liverpool in 1911. Captain J. A. Sanders became her new master.

In the year 1914, she was sold to Finnish owner August Troberg under the command of Captain Edward August Jansson, and Lawhill became Finland's largest sailing ship. Despite the hazards of World War I, Lawhill continued to sail, managing to elude U-boats and arrive unescorted into Brest in May 1917, carrying wheat from Australia. However, French authorities refused to let Lawhill leave, citing the risks, and used her as a store ship. While in port, Lawhill was purchased by another Finn, Gustaf Erikson, but before she could get to sea, Finland became an ally of Germany, and in June 1918, the French government officially requisitioned Lawhill. The French started to convert Lawhill to a motor ship, but after much protest, Erikson finally got her back in January 1919, and, under the command of Captain Karl Reuben de Cloux, she resumed carrying wheat, first from Argentina, then from Australia again, as well as timber and other cargoes. The author Alan Villiers served on Lawhill, until injured off Port Lincoln in a fall from the yardarm in 1922. [1]

On 1 October 1932, she rammed and sank Polish steamer SS Niemen (3.107 BRT) in Kattegat. As for the trial of Captain Arthur. A. Söderlund, the Lawhill master, he was found not guilty.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan graphically described his 10-months in the ship during her 1933-34 voyage to Australia, when he published his book Heavenly Hell: The Experiences of an Apprentice in a Four-Mast Barque. [2]

After twenty years of steady service as a grain carrier, Lawhill was arrested on August 21, 1941 while in East London after a return from Australia and officially confiscated finally by the South African government in April 1942 (or September 22, 1942) as a prize of war, Finland having sided with the Axis. The ship was used by the South African Railways & Harbour Administration for cargo during the war, then sold to private citizens of South Africa (in 1946 to Lawhill (Pty) Ltd., East London and in 1947 to Thomas Worker and Herman Olthaver, Johannesburg, for the sum of £9,000), who used Lawhill on several voyages to Argentina with coal and returning with a cargo of wheat. In November 1947 she sailed from Lourenço Marques under the command of Captain Madry A. Lindholm to Port Victoria in ballast and returned to Beira, Mozambique, with a cargo of wheat. This was in fact her last long voyage at sea. Showing signs of deterioration, she was sold to Marcio da Silva Jr of Lourenço Marques and arrived there, after a short voyage of 500 nautical miles (930 km) from Beira, with great ceremony in September 1948. However, the necessary repairs were beyond the means of her new owners, and she was laid up in the Tembe River where she rotted at anchor for many years. After a last transfer to Joaquim Fernandes Coelho, the old ship was finally broken up for scrap sometime in the late 1950s.

Between 1940-1944, the donkeyman on the Lawhill was B.V. Linderman of Finland. During his time aboad the Lawhill under Captain Söderlund, Lindeman rounded Cape Horn three times under sail.[ citation needed ]

See also

Citations

  1. Mike Scanlon (28 January 2012). "Lawhill was truly lawless". The Newcastle Herald : H2 8. Retrieved 25 March 2012.
  2. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Heavenly Hell: The Experiences of an Apprentice in a Four-Mast Barque London: Putnam, 1935.

Related Research Articles

<i>Star of India</i> (ship) A museum ship harbored in San Diego, USA

Star of India is an iron-hulled sailing ship, built in 1863 in Ramsey, Isle of Man as the full-rigged ship Euterpe. After a career sailing from Great Britain to India and New Zealand, she was renamed, re-rigged as a barque, and became a salmon hauler on the Alaska to California route. Retired in 1926, she was restored as a seaworthy museum ship in 1962–3 and home-ported at the Maritime Museum of San Diego in San Diego, California. She is the oldest ship still sailing regularly and also the oldest iron-hulled merchant ship still afloat. The ship is both a California Historical Landmark and United States National Historic Landmark.

<i>Pamir</i> (ship) German sailing ship

Pamir was a four-masted barque built for the German shipping company F. Laeisz. One of their famous Flying P-Liners, she was the last commercial sailing ship to round Cape Horn, in 1949. By 1957, she had been outmoded by modern bulk carriers and could not operate at a profit. Her shipping consortium's inability to finance much-needed repairs or to recruit sufficient sail-trained officers caused severe technical difficulties. On 21 September 1957, she was caught in Hurricane Carrie and sank off the Azores, with only six survivors rescued after an extensive search.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iron-hulled sailing ship</span>

Iron-hulled sailing ships represented the final evolution of sailing ships at the end of the age of sail. They were built to carry bulk cargo for long distances in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They were the largest of merchant sailing ships, with three to five masts and square sails, as well as other sail plans. They carried lumber, guano, grain or ore between continents. Later examples had steel hulls. They are sometimes referred to as "windjammers" or "tall ships". Several survive, variously operating as school ships, museum ships, restaurant ships, and cruise ships.

<i>Marco Polo</i> (1851 ship) Canadian–British clipper ship

Marco Polo was a three-masted wooden clipper ship, launched in 1851 at Saint John, New Brunswick. She was named after Venetian traveler Marco Polo. The ship carried emigrants and passengers to Australia and was the first vessel to make the round trip from Liverpool in under six months. Later in her career, the ship was used as a cargo ship before running aground off Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, in 1883.

<i>Polly Woodside</i> A museum ship in Melbourne, Australia

Polly Woodside is a Belfast-built, three-masted, iron-hulled barque, preserved in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), and forming the central feature of the South Wharf precinct. The ship was originally built in Belfast by William J. Woodside and was launched in 1885. Polly Woodside is typical of thousands of smaller iron barques built in the last days of sail, intended for deep water trade around the world and designed to be operated as economically as possible.

<i>Suomen Joutsen</i> Finnish fregate built in 1902

Suomen Joutsen is a steel-hulled full-rigged ship with three square rigged masts. Built in 1902 by Chantiers de Penhoët in St. Nazaire, France, as Laënnec, the ship served two French owners before she was sold to German interest in 1922 and renamed Oldenburg. In 1930, she was acquired by the Government of Finland, refitted to serve as a school ship for the Finnish Navy and given her current name. Suomen Joutsen made eight long international voyages before the Second World War and later served in various support and supply roles during the war. From 1961 on she served as a stationary seamen's school for the Finnish Merchant Navy. In 1991, Suomen Joutsen was donated to the city of Turku and became a museum ship moored next to Forum Marinum.

<i>Passat</i> (ship) German sailship

is a German four-masted steel barque and one of the Flying P-Liners, the famous sailing ships of the German shipping company F. Laeisz. She is one of the last surviving windjammers.

<i>Pommern</i> (ship) Iron-hulled sailing ship

Pommern, formerly Mneme (1903–1908), is an iron-hulled sailing ship. It is a four-masted barque that was built in 1903 at the J. Reid & Co shipyard in Glasgow, Scotland.

<i>Moshulu</i> Sailing ship built in 1904

Moshulu is a four-masted steel barque, built as Kurt by William Hamilton and Company at Port Glasgow in Scotland in 1904. The largest remaining original windjammer, she is currently a floating restaurant docked in Penn's Landing, Philadelphia, adjacent to the museum ships USS Olympia and USS Becuna.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jackass-barque</span>

A jackass-barque, sometimes spelled jackass bark, is a sailing ship with three masts, of which the foremast is square-rigged and the main is partially square-rigged and partially fore-and-aft rigged (course). The mizzen mast is fore-and-aft rigged.

<i>Viking</i> (barque) 1906 four-masted barque

Viking is a four-masted steel barque, built in 1906 by Burmeister & Wain in Copenhagen, Denmark. She is reported to be the biggest sailing ship ever built in Scandinavia. In the 21st century her sailing days have drawn to a close, and she is now moored as a botel in Gothenburg, Sweden.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gustaf Erikson</span> Finnish ship-owner

Gustaf Adolf Mauritz Erikson was a ship-owner from Mariehamn, in the Åland islands. He was famous for the fleet of windjammers he operated to the end of his life, mainly on the grain trade from Australia to Europe.

<i>Herzogin Cecilie</i> German-built four-masted barque wrecked near Salcombe

Herzogin Cecilie was a German-built four-mast barque (windjammer), named after German Crown Princess Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1886–1954), spouse of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (1882–1951). She sailed under German, French and Finnish flags.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grain race</span> Sailing race from Australia to England

Grain Race or The Great Grain Race was the informal name for the annual windjammer sailing season generally from South Australia's grain ports on Spencer Gulf to Lizard Point, Cornwall on the southwesternmost coast of the United Kingdom, or to specific ports. A good, fast passage Australia-to-England via Cape Horn was considered anything under 100 days.

<i>Ponape</i> (barque)

Ponape was a four-masted steel–hulled barque which was built in 1903 in Italy as Regina Elena for an Italian owner. In 1911 she was sold to Germany and renamed Ponape. In 1914 she was arrested by HMS Majestic and confiscated as a war prize by the Admiralty. She was renamed Bellhouse In 1915 she was sold to Norwegian owners. In 1925, she was sold to Finland and again named Ponape serving until she was scrapped in 1936.

<i>Priwall</i> (barque)

Priwall was a four-masted steel-hulled barque with royal sails over double top and topgallant sails. The windjammer was ordered by the F. Laeisz shipping company of Hamburg and launched at the Blohm & Voss yard, Hamburg, on 23 June 1917. After delays arising from a shortage of materials during and after First World War, she was completed on 6 March 1920. Priwall was used on the nitrate trade route to the west coast of South America; she also made several voyages from South Australia's Spencer Gulf grain ports to Europe. Her code Letters were RWLN; in 1934 they were changed to DIRQ.

<i>Omega</i> (barque)

Omega was a four-masted, steel-hulled barque built in Greenock, Scotland in 1887. In 1957 Omega became the last working cargo-carrying square-rigger afloat. She carried oil, guano, nitrate, wheat, and other goods. She sank in 1958, ending that age of sail.

<i>Garthpool</i> (barque)

Garthpool was a steel-hulled four-masted barque rigged in "jubilee" or "baldheaded" fashion, i.e. without royal sails over the top-gallant sails, active in the early part of the 20th century. She was said to have been the last commercial square-rigged sailing ship under a British flag.

<i>Admiral Karpfanger</i> (barque)

Admiral Karpfanger was a German four-masted barque that was a cargo ship and sail training ship. She was built near Bremerhaven in 1908 as l'Avenir, which was the name that she bore until 1937. She spent most of her career with the Association Maritime Belge, SA.

<i>Lalla Rookh</i> (1876 ship) Iron barque built in 1876

Lalla Rookh was an iron three-masted barque, 841 tons, built in 1876 by R & J Evans and Co. in Liverpool and originally owned by E. C. Friend and Co. In 1905 she was sold to Norwegian owners, and in 1916 her name was changed to Effendi. From March 1923 or 1924 she was based in Finland, renamed Karhu, before reverting to her original name in 1926. She was broken up in Bruges, Belgium, in 1928.

References