UK, Adelaide's Most Historic Ship Saved? CARRICK
UK, Adelaide's Most Historic Ship Saved? August 5: A UK commercial property developer, Tim Roper, is attempting to save the highly significant CARRICK (ex CITY OF ADELAIDE, HMS CARRICK) described as the earliest surviving clipper ship and the only wooden sailing passenger ship of the 19th Century in Great Britain. Mr. Roper now owns the 176 foot long vessel that was facing imminent destruction at her slipway in Scotland. The new owner plans to move the 860 tonne ship to Falmouth as a floating restaurant, art gallery, hotel, college or office space near Trelissick gardens, accessible by road or river. Launched in Sunderland in 1864, CITY OF ADELAIDE carried cargo and passengers (in the highest standard of first class accommodation for a sailing ship, with room for second class) between London and Adelaide. Australian researchers have estimated that more than 60% of the current population of the State of South Australia can trace their families' arrival in Australia to the CITY OF ADELAIDE. In 1887 she was sold and used for cargo only, first as a collier between the Tyne and Dover and then on the North Atlantic timber trade. In 1893, she was converted to a floating isolation hospital on the River Test at Southampton. The British Admiralty bought her as a training ship for volunteer reservists in 1923 and renamed her HMS CARRICK and towed her to Irvine on the Clyde, where she remained until 1949. Renamed CARRICK, she was moved to Greenock and commissioned as a Naval Drill Ship, then later used as a Royal Navy Volunteer Reserves of Scotland headquarters until she was abandoned in 1990. By 1991, the then 127-year old ship was close to being a total loss, but was salvaged by the Scottish Maritime Museum and moved to Irvine in 1992 for future restoration as a static exhibit; however, funds were not available to prevent the ship from decay. http://maritimematters.com/shipnews.html