John Blackshoe Sends: Serendipity History –

Sailors and Ships in the Age of Sail (Part 2 of 3) 

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History of the Sailing Vessel Garthsnaid (Shown in a storm in part I.)

The Beginning

 

Sailing Vessel Inversnaid circa 1892.
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The ship was built by Archibald McMillan and Son at Dumbarton on the River Clyde in Scotland, a major shipbuilding location. 

Inversnaid was launched 26 May 1892, built for George Milne of Aberdeen. She was relatively small, 283 feet long 36.2 foot beam and 21.7 foot depth of hold for 1418 gross tons. She was a steel hull Barque (square rigged on the fore and main masts and fore and aft rigged on the mizzen. She operated from Aberdeen for the Milne company until 1919 when he sold the rest of his ships (with “Inver___” names to the Marine Navigation Company of Canada owned by Sir William Garthwaite of Montreal. Names were changed to “Garth___” and thus the Inversnaid became Garthsnaid in 1919. Source

During WW1 the Inversnaid was engaged in merchant shipping without incident, although one of her sister ships was sunk by a German U-boat. Merchant ship crews were all awarded a service medal for their contributions to the war effort.

By 1919, sailing ships were no longer competitive on voyages requiring speedy delivery, but they were cheap to operate (wind is free), and could be manned with small, relatively inexperienced crews making them popular for hauling bulk materials like nitrate fertilizer from Chile to points around the world. This was the main use of Garthsnaid for the rest of her career. Most sailing ships were worked hard with minimal expenditures for maintenance and were sold for scrap or simply abandoned as they wore out or suffered severe damage.

 

Garthsnaid in Iquique, Chile circa 1920, likely awaiting her cargo of nitrate.
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Ancestry.com member trees provided a photo of Alexander Harper Turner in his uniform, probably circa 1919-1921 when he was Second Mate aboard the Garthsnaid. 
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In Part I we saw Garthsnaid in a storm, captured in Turner’s photo circa April-July 1920, which was winter in the Southern Hemisphere. Turner’s service aboard Garthsnaid lasted from 10 July 1919 to 17 December 1921. He qualified as 1st Mate on 3 April 1922, left Garthsnaid and began sailing on the steamship Rhode Island of the White Diamond Line. Other mariners took his place as 2nd Mate for the rest of Garthsnaid’s history.

The End

In April 1923 the barque Garthsnaid was dismasted in a storm outbound from Iquique, Chile, and taken under tow by the White Star line steamer SS ZEALANDIC into Melbourne according to the following newspaper account.

The Argus, Melbourne, 4 April 1923 Source

BARQUE IN A STORM

THREE TERRIBLE DAYS

By the irony of fate the end of the long voyage of the barque Garthsnaid was almost in sight when she was struck by a storm which lasted for three terrible days and threatened her destruction. Good seamanship, combined with good luck and the timely arrival of the steamer Zealandic, saved her. Coastal reports on Sunday stated that the Garthsnaid was in tow of the Zealandic, and at 11 o'clock yesterday morning the barque passed through Port Phillip Heads, in appearance more like a dismantled hulk than the trim barque which was a familiar sight at Melbourne in September. For three days the crew, numbering 21, had nothing to eat except weevily biscuits and tinned beef, and were without sleep. 

 

The Garthsnaid left Iquique in December, and on Friday morning was booming along about 100 miles east of Gabo, approaching Bass Straits, with lower topsails set before a freshening easterly breeze. Before nightfall, however, the breeze had freshened into a gale, [conditions very similar to those captured in Turner’s photograph!] which, veering suddenly to the southward, caught the barque. All hands were called on deck, but the master (Captain J. Roberts), realising that to send a man aloft was to throw away his life, did what he could by skilful navigation to avert impending disaster. With a loud report the main topmast carried away, bringing with it lines and sheets, which lay in a tangled mass over the port side, tearing the royal and topgallant yards and mizzen topmast down. The crew, which was all-British, "worked like [n-----s]" (to quote Captain Roberts, who cannot say enough for his men), and cast the damaged rigging overboard. Half an hour afterwards the main lower mast snapped 3ft. from the deck, and lay straggling over the starboard side. Rolling and pitching helplessly, the Garthsnaid shipped heavy seas, and movement on deck was hazardous. All movable deck gear was swept overboard. Large quantities of oil were released, but still the Garthsnaid lay awash. 

With great difficulty, and running under scant canvas, a course was steered for Gabo, when the long list of mishaps was added to by the snapping of the fore topgallant mast, which hung down, with its canvas flapping noisily in the wind. All night the crew worked to clear the wreckage away. An inspection was made of the holds, which were found to be undamaged and making no water. Two of the lifeboats were smashed beyond repair, and the third was severely damaged. 

With unabated vigour the storm continued all next day; but the wind began to ease as night came on, and with sighs of relief Gabo light was sighted at 2 o'clock in the morning. A little later the lights of a steamer were sighted, and in half an hour the Zealandic was alongside. She waited until daylight, and then passed a 5in. wire hawser to the barque, it broke. Four more attempts were made, and at last the Garthsnaid was secured. After a three-hour struggle the line was made fast, and the Zealandic set out for Melbourne with the barque in tow.

The Garthsnaid was laden with a cargo worth about £50,000. When she entered the Heads she signalled for a tug, but probably on account of the salvage, perhaps because she could not operate her anchor, she was towed to Williamstown by the Zealandic, which then returned to Geelong. Substantial salvage money will probably be paid to the Zealandic for her part in the rescue of the Garthsnaid, the crew of which pay a tribute to their rescuers.

Dismasted SV Garthsnaid under salvage tow by SS ZEALANDIC, April 1923

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SV Garthsnaid in Melbourne April 1924, showing storm damage.

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There, Garthsnaid was left to her fate, not worth repairing. She was finally broken up for scrap in Melbourne in February 1938, per the following story from the Brisbane Argus. Source:

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From the story above:

“Too damaged to be worth repairing Garthsnaid was sold for use as a coal hulk, but proved unsuitable for that…. Various plans, including one for loading the hulk with scrap iron and towing her to Japan, and another to convert her to a dance hall fell through and the hulk remained idle in the river until in 1936 the harbor dues owing were more than the total value of the ship. The authorities were powerless to order the removal of the ship because of legal technicalities.”

 Lovers of ships and the sea will recognize this all too familiar problem of wishful thinking. The most recent case is the fate of the fastest ocean liner ever built, the SS UNITED STATES, delivered in 1952 as the pinnacle of ocean liner technology. But within a few years, transatlantic jet aircraft travel became cheap and common, destroying the liner trade. Laid up since 1969 the SS UNITED STATES endured a similar sequence of wishful thinking for adaptive uses. Disputes since 1996 over unpaid docking bills in Philadelphia and lackluster fundraising efforts resulted in eviction notices. In September 2024 it was decided that she would be sunk off Destin, FL as a diving attraction although it will take some time and money to prepare her for the tow and sinking. 

S.S. UNITED STATES rotting at her unpaid for berth in Philadelphia, 2024.

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Not a sailing ship, but just as obsolete. Read all about this great ship, and her obsessed designer William Francis Gibbs (of Gibbs & Cox) in “A Man and His Ship : America's Greatest Naval Architect and His Quest to Build the S. S. United States” by Steven Ujifusa, available for under $10.00

Ships are inanimate objects made of steel, bronze, aluminum, wood or other materials and are seen as mere “things” by landlubbers. But, to their builders and crews they are endowed with near living properties, and often fondly remembered as a home, base of operations, or transportation. Their machinery is loved, or cursed, but respected for its contribution to life at sea. Shared experiences and sacrifices bind the crew together, and to the ship.

The scrapping of a sailor’s former ship is a truly emotional subject, nearly on the level of losing a friend, family member, or pet. A ship may be gone, but to those who sailed as crew or passenger they are never forgotten.

My last ship.
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Author's Note: Part 3 of 3 reveals the history of the man who took the photo of Garthsnaid in the storm.