A last chance to save the Scottish-built historic sailing ship the Falls of Clyde appears to have failed as Hawaii’s transport department is preparing to take the vessel out of Honolulu harbour and sink it.
Launched in Port Glasgow in 1878, Falls of Clyde is the last remaining iron-hulled four-masted sailing ship in the world. It has been declared dangerous by the Harbors Division of the State of Hawaii Department of Transportation (DoT), which has rescinded its permit to reside in Honolulu harbour.
Despite a campaign to save the ship by its owners, preservation society the Friends of the Falls of Clyde, what appears to be a final decision has been made and though it is not yet fully certain what will happen, it appears likely that the 138-year-old ship will be towed out of the harbour and sunk to become an attraction for divers.
Last-ditch appeals to try and preserve it are being made by campaigners in this country, who have called on MPs and MSPs to get involved even at this late stage.
The ship is the only survivor of the once-renowned Falls line, of which there were eight ships built by Russell and Company at Port Glasgow.
Falls of Clyde sailed round both Capes and to every continent except Antarctica before it was eventually sold to an American shipping company, and then plied the sugar trade route between California and Hawaii.
It was then sold to be an oil tanker off Alaska, where its masts were shorn, before the decision was made to scuttle it in 1963. A public outcry in Hawaii and a campaign to save the ship brought it to Honolulu, as many remembered it sailing there.
Falls of Clyde arrived in Hawaii to a state welcome, with helicopters dropping flowers and boats in bunting tooting their horns. It was given a religious blessing.
There then began a long campaign to restore the vessel, with new masts being presented by the famous Clyde shipbuilding family, the Lithgows.
It fell into disrepair again, but the Friends of the Falls of Clyde took over ownership and are running an immediate campaign to have it put in dry dock and repaired before further restoration can take place.
The Friends last month contested the DoT’s decision at an independent hearing, but the adjudicating officer found in favour of the state.
Former Honolulu resident Patricia Mirrlees, wife of Nobel Prize winner Sir James Mirrlees, has written to MPs and MSP asking them to intervene by contracting the Governor of Hawaii, David Ige.
She told The National: “It is ironic that Hawaii, which saved the Falls of Clyde from being scuppered in 1963 through a campaign which caught the imagination of the public in what today would be called crowd-funding, and which then restored the ship to her former glory and gave her a home for the past 50 years, should now be prepared to see her sunk.”
“The last sailing ship of her kind, with her destruction an irreplaceable part of Scottish and global maritime history will be lost.”
“Ideally the Falls of Clyde should be brought home to Scotland and saved for the nation since she is such a valuable part of our maritime history.”
“But the first step is to save her from being sunk in Honolulu.”
Hawaii DoT said the judge had concluded that the state had acted “reasonably and fairly” and that options would not be pursued to remove the ship from Honolulu harbour.
The favoured option for some time has been to sink it in popular diving waters near Honolulu.
Friends’ chairman Bruce McEwan confirmed that the group would take legal action to prevent the sinking and confirmed that new owners could take it over, with interest expressed in the USA and Scotland.
A blog on the group’s website recorded that the hearing officer did not consider “our arguments based on Federal and State historic preservation laws”.
It added: “He stated that they were not relevant to the impoundment. It is our position that when the Harbors Division takes their next step to move toward their goal of removing the ship from the harbour that those laws will be relevant.”
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Source: The National
