The rotting hulk on an Ayrshire shore at Irvine, known as The Carrick, is, at 145 years old, the last surviving clipper in the world.
Built at Sunderland in 1864, earlier than the Cutty Sark, she was named City of Adelaide, plying her trade between Britain and Australia, carrying a mixed cargo of colonists, timber and wool.
The ship has immense historic value and has been the subject of competing bids to acquire and restore her. These have come from her birth city of Sunderland and from the city of Adelaide whose early citizens she carried there.
Her worth was insufficiently regarded here in Scotland though, left as a progressively derelict hull (see photograph) on an Ayrshire shore.
Threatened with eviction from the slipway in question, the Maritime Museum had applied for a demolition order for the ship.
The background to this and to the competing bids for the remains of the clipper is in an earlier story of ours, Historic clipper, City of Adelaide to be demolished?
Now the future of the ship has been decided.
Yesterday, Scotland’s Culture Minister Fiona Hyslop announced that the ship will not be deconstructed and that the preferred bidder is Adelaide. The UK bidder, Sunderland Maritime Heritage has congratulated Adelaide while saying that it is to continue its own bid to have the ship kept in Britain.
Ms Hyslop, in making the announcement, said that the she sees the ship as a cultural bridge between the nations of Scotland and Australia.
The photograph at the top was taken of the hulk of the City of Adelaide on the shore in Irvine by Dave Cook from Fairlie and is reproduced here under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic licence.
I suppose that for this hulk to be transported to Adelaide where it will doubtless be refurbished and used as a tourist magnet is a far better result than for it to be demolished on the coast of Ayrshire. What a sad commentary though on the inability of cash strapped Scotland to have the vision and the control to emulate other countries who can see the potential in their heritage.I recently visited the Baltic capitals where a great deal of tourist activity is nurtured in Oslo with not one but three World Class museums celebrating the Viking Longships, Nansen and Amundsen’s FRAM and the historic Kon Tiki and Raa expeditions. In Stockholm a massive building holds the ill fated Vasa that sailed about 800 metres before sinking on her maiden voyage! We have nothing to compare with such imaginative exhibitions although the tradition of shipbuilding and seagoing is surely as deep here.The Carrick is perhaps not the best example of what we could seek to preserve but the process illustrates the problems we face.The Discovery at Dundee is an example of what we should be aspiring to do.
I can remember The Carrick when she was moored in the centre of Glasgow and was used as an exclusive club by, I think, the RNVR. One might have thought that with a once proud naval tradition in Scotland there would be sufficient impetus to preserve the ship in Scotland and I know that Michael Russell was involved in attempts to do just that several years ago.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0