The clipper ship City of Adelaide (later HMS Carrick), the oldest surviving composite clipper ship in the world, was at serious risk of being broken up until a deal was struck last August to move the ship from the Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine, Scotland, back to its namesake city in Australia – Adelaide. Next week, the fabrication of a 100-tonne steel cradle, to support the historic clipper will begin. See our previous posts about the efforts to save the City of Adelaide.
City of Adelaide work to begin
A ceremony to mark the start of the project will be held at Samaras Structural Engineers on Monday morning (June 27).
A bottle of champagne will be cracked over the first piece of the cradle by Pam Whittle, the great-grand-daughter of the clipper’s first captain, David Bruce, and Marion Wells, the great-great-granddaughter of migrant Matilda Methuen.
The clipper and cradle will then be rolled onto a barge for transfer to a deep port at Rotterdam, where it will be transferred to a larger ship for the voyage to Port Adelaide.
How exciting and what a huge project. Reminds me of the relocation saga of the Great Britian which came back by barge from the Falkland Islands to Bristol.
But then she was an iron ship whereas this is obviously a wooden vessel.
(Hope I have my facts right as I am going from memory of a trip to Bristol several years ago).
MM (Australia)
The City of Adelaide is a composite ship like the Cutty Sark, so she has an iron keel and frames, which with luck will help keep her together in the long trip from Scotland.
She came so close to being scrapped it is great that the project is moving forward.
Hello,
When is the transport of the vessel in port of Rotterdam?
I like to have a look and take some pictures
I don’t know that it has been announced. There seem to be final issues with fundraising and logistics.