The Hawaii Department of Transportation issued a statement confirming that the sinking of the famed sailing cargo ship Falls of Clyde was completed midday Wednesday, October 15, away from Honolulu harbor. The state had been seeking a solution to have the vessel removed from Honolulu Harbor since it seized the Falls of Clyde in 2016 and repeatedly attempted to sell the ship.
The 146-year-old vessel had been docked at Honolulu Harbor but had been closed to the public since 2008. It was first brought to Hawaii in 1963 for restoration and spent its final years berthed at Pier 7, where it once served as a museum ship as part of the Hawaii Maritime Center. The center closed in 2009, and after the owner defaulted on the ship by not moving it, it was impounded in 2016 when its permit was revoked.
Falls of Clyde was the world’s only surviving iron-hulled, four-masted, fully-rigged ship. She was built in Glasgow in 1878, during a shipbuilding boom inspired by increased trade with the U.S., and she made several voyages to American ports while under the British flag. In 1898, she was purchased by Captain William Matson of the Matson Navigation Company and reregistered in Hawaii.
From 1899 to 1907, the ship was re-rigged as a bark for sailing with fewer crew, and she made over sixty voyages between Hawaii and San Francisco, carrying passengers, sugar, and general cargo. She was sold San Francisco-based Associated Oil Company, which installed large steel tanks in the hull, allowing her to carry 750,000 gallons of liquid bulk. For decades, the ship would bring kerosene to Hawaii and molasses back from Hawaii to California.
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