The State of Hawaii has notified the Friends of Falls of Clyde, the organization responsible for rescuing the historic ship of the same name, that the state plans to terminate its permit which allows the ship to be docked for free. “They received the ship from the Bishop Museum with the understanding it would go into dry dock quickly. It has been 6 years and it doesn’t appear we are any closer to putting it into dry dock,” said Hawaii State Department of Transportation Deputy Director Darrell Young. If anything, the organization’s finances have grown worse over time and the ship continues to deteriorate.
Falls of Clyde is the last four-masted full-rigged iron ship and the only surviving sailing oil tanker. The ship was launched in 1878 in Port Glasgow, Scotland, for the Fall Line. She became a museum ship in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1971, but was never properly maintained. In 2008, the Bishop Museum, which had control of the ship, was preparing to tow her out sea and scuttle her. In September 2008, the Friends of the Falls of Clyde, a non-profit group of volunteers, acquired the ship. Unfortunately, the organization has been longer on promises than on performance. For six years, they have been promising that they would be dry docking the ship, as the first step toward restoration, yet nothing seems to be happening.