# Last British-built square riggers for British owners?



## Shipbuilder

Although it is generally accepted that the ARCHIBALD RUSSELL was the last, in 1905, there were two more built in about 1907, they were three-masted steel barques. I am trying to find their names. I know for a fact that they are pictured and detailed in SHIPS IN FOCUS RECORD. I have all 49 issues and have been going through them for days, but still can't find them. Does anyone know what issue they are in or their names?

Bob


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## Shipbuilder

Please disregard the above request. 

Early this morning, I began with Volume 1, turning each page individually. At 1030 BST, I found them both on page 34 of Volume 29. They were a pair of identical stump t'gallant three-masted barques completed by Napier & Miller, of Old Kirkpatrick in 1907 for Lever Brothers of Port Sunlight. Their names were SUNLIGHT and RENDOVA. Both were lost by enemy action in 1915 and 1917 respectively. 

Bob


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## grootondermarszeil

*3-mast barque RENDOVA*

The barque RENDOVA was built for LEVER .bross later renamed SNESPURVER sails for the "Vestlandske Petroleums Compagnie Bergen Nor. Dim. L 70,4 W 11,3 D6,4 1407 grt Shelled down 02/04/1917 25 miles ssw of Tuskar John


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## Shipbuilder

Thanks, I found all the info in the Ships in Focus. I knew it was there, but didn't know the names. It took about three hours to find them, starting at volume 1 and finding them in Volume 29. Three good photographs there as well.
Bob


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## Bosun ken

*Tall Ships*



Shipbuilder said:


> Although it is generally accepted that the ARCHIBALD RUSSELL was the last, in 1905, there were two more built in about 1907, they were three-masted steel barques. I am trying to find their names. I know for a fact that they are pictured and detailed in SHIPS IN FOCUS RECORD. I have all 49 issues and have been going through them for days, but still can't find them. Does anyone know what issue they are in or their names?
> 
> Bob


. Well one of them is the"Lawhill" built in Aberdeen .Another one was the " KOBENHAVN" a five masted barque .built-in Leith Scotland. Best of luck .


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## Shipbuilder

Ken,

Last British-built square riggers for British owners

The Lawhill was built in 1892 so was not the last by a long way.

_Kobenhavn_ does not qualify because she was built for Danish owners!

The _Sunlight_ and the _Rendova_ were the last two British square-riggers built for British owners and I found all the details eventually.

Book is now complete & published - currently working on next!

Bob


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## poddys

My Grandfather sailed on the first voyage of the Archibald Russell. I have a paper that shows this, but nothing else.


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## Shipbuilder

Here is a small model I built about 20 years ago of ARCHIBALD RUSSELL. The ship is very well-do***ented and was still sailing at the outbreak of WWII and only scrapped in the late 1950s.
Bob


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## poddys

Very nice.


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## Bosun ken

Hi, Poddy If you go to the Website type "Four masted Barque "Archibald Russell" , you will get all the info you need , BEST OF LUCK


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## Tall Ship Bloke

Surely the last British built square rigger for a British owner is the Barque TENACIOUS? 

Built by the Jubilee Sailing Trust in Southampton, owned and operated by the Jubilee Sailing Trust. 

http://www.jst.org.uk/tenacious.aspx


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## stein

A motorised ship with no cargo carrying capacity is not qualified for the competition, even if the auxiliary sail can move her - at least not as I see it. You may of course decide on your own, but the term "last" then loses much of its meaning here?


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## Shipbuilder

I would agree with STEIN here. Maybe I should have said the last commercial cargo-carrying sailing ship without an engine, trading under sail alone!
Bob


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## Tall Ship Bloke

OK, fair enough. I do appreciate the differences, the JST ships do not carry cargo and have engines for when needed of course. 

Just thought it was worth posting for anyone reading that may think British built & operated square riggers are a 'quaint old thing of the past'.

If anyone is interested, the MCA classes TENACIOUS as a Class VII Cargo Ship (only a Gov't agency could class a ship that carries no cargo as cargo ship...).


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## sidsal

Did a 7 day trip on Tenacious a couple of years ago. We had a good blow one day and some great sailing. Although over 80 at the time I managed to get on the yards ( well safety harnessed though).
The other JST ship Lord Nelson is due to cir***navigate next year and a provisional programme is now out. It includes a 60 day leg from Auckland to Ushuaia around the Horn - through the Roaring Forties. Being now 85 I think I will give it a miss this time around.


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## stan mayes

Hello Sid,
Like myself possibly - problems with my sea legs?
Best regards,
Stan


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## Bosun ken

The last commercial square rigger to load in Port Victoria .SA. Was the " Pamir". She then sailed on the 28th. Of May 1949 for the UK. Around Cape Horn . She arrived in Falmouth after 128days out . Also with her was the " Passart " which left on the 1st of June 1949 . She arrived much earlier, so having beaten the"Pamir " she was not entitled to the honour ? Of being the last , No. She wasnt a British ship ,but she carried a crew of New Zealanders,but under the Finnish flag . She was subsequently sold to the Germans and had an engine put in her. And she then traded commercially with cadets on board . She eventually met her fate in the Atlantic , capsizing and sinking with nearly all hands .there were two or three survivors I think .


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## Bosun ken

To put a cat among the pigeons..... There is not such a "vessel" as a " Three masted Barque .!!!


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## Shipbuilder

I suppose this is just another "Wind up" on the "Ship or Boat" theme!(Jester)
Here is a miniature I built of the three-masted barque _Svaerdstad_,

Bob


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## Bosun ken

Bob. A barque is three masted vessel square rigged on the fore and main mast and fore and aft rigged on the mizzen OK ? A barque with four masts is a four masted barque OK ? First of all they are Barques,determining on the amount of masts they have they then become, four masters or even five masted Barques . You have a car ,it has four wheels , do you tell your friends that you have a lovely four wheeled car ?? Perhaps if it had six wheels then you would call it a six wheeled car ....but it's still a car .!


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## Shipbuilder

Ken,

I knew what you meant! Just saying a barque does mean a three-master. But as you know, there were barques built with four or even five masts. Adding a "three" before the word barque does not, in my opinion make it incorrect, but does clarify the matter beyond doubt, and I have heard sailing ship seamen say that a nice little three-masted barque after a full-rigged ship was a lot easier work-wise!

Now, if anyone said a two-masted brig, I would say that was incorrect because brigs have only two masts anyway. There are no three or four-masted brigs!

Really, the biggest error when talking about sailing ships (for me) is the use of the strange term "tall ship." Regarding your other post elsewhere, in reference to the mast height of _Aquitania,_ Should that ship then be classed as a "tall ship" because she was certainly taller from the waterline than any sailing ship so far built!

Bob

PS
There might have been the odd square rigger with higher trucks than _Aquitania_, but not many!


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## Boatman25

Advantage Shipbuilder he he


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## Bosun ken

Ask the boatman to declare it a draw, by raising the point it now becomes something in question. When I was a lad around 15yrs I use to talk a lot to an old seaman friend , who was by the way, severly wounded in the battle of Jutland ,he told me that his first ship to sea was ' a little Barque out of Christiana Norway.I wanted to go to sea badly , obviously I went. There are so many stories that we can tell, you know the old saying ' Ships I've been in and blokes I've sailed with ,brings to mind of an old shipmate I was with, named George Boswel. He was well over seventy then.He was once the Bosun of the " Grace Hawar " a full rigged ship he had a Cape Horn voice you felt the decks shake when spoke , but one he'll of good shipmate. I asked him how did he get the Bosuns job, his reply was " I walked into the foc'sle and said , " I'm the Bosun any argument" Obviouslly there wasn't. Many stories to tell....


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