City of Adelaide clipper ship finally arrives home in Adelaide
THE City of Adelaide clipper ship has finally arrived in Adelaide, almost 128 years after it last left the city it helped build during the golden age of sailing.
THE City of Adelaide clipper ship has finally arrived in Adelaide, almost 128 years after it last left the city it helped build during the golden age of sailing.
The remains of the historic clipper ship that carried settlers to South Australia in the late 19th century - and the oldest of only two surviving wooden clipper ships - arrived at Outer Harbor at 6.30am today aboard the cargo ship MV Palanpur.
A few hours later it arrived at Berth 18 just north of the Diver Derrick Bridge over the Port River.
The clipper's arrival today comes five months after she was rescued from rot and neglect on a slipway in Scotland.
MORE: 12 things you never knew about the City of Adelaide
The City of Adelaide was originally meant to arrive in Adelaide on January 20 but its journey was slowed because of bad weather in the US and difficulty unloading cargo in Port Hedland, WA.
Lashed to the deck of a modern cargo vessel that was slowed by strong winds and high seas as it made its way along the West Australian coast, the old ship is being greeted by the City of Adelaide Preservation Trust, which has worked for 13 years to bring her "home".
Trust director Peter Christopher said it was satisfying to see the fruit of thousands of hours of volunteer work and millions of dollars raised through government grants, business sponsorship and individual donors.
"It's pretty exciting," Mr Christopher said.
"We were down at Outer Harbor when it went through the breakwater.
"To see it arrive after all these years the realisation is that part of the project is behind us now - it was quite emotional."
Pam Whittle, whose great-grandfather was the first captain of the ship, said it was amazing to think it was finally back in Adelaide.
"I'm absolutely thrilled to bits," Mrs Whittle said.
"This year is its 150th birthday - it's the most amazing coincidence."
The City of Adelaide brought 889 passengers from Britain to Adelaide between 1864 and 1886, along with thousands of tonnes of cargo.
The only other surviving wooden clipper ship is London's Cutty Sark, which was commissioned in 1870.
It will take 10 hours today to cut and remove the steel supports holding the clipper's steel cradle which is welded to the deck of the Palanpur.
It will be unloaded onto the barge Bradley tonight and tomorrow and then floated down the Port River on Wednesday or Thursday to its temporary home at Dock One.
The owner of nearby business the Royal Arms Hotel, Rob Lewis, said having the City of Adelaide in the heart of Port Adelaide would be a big boost for local traders.
"It's excellent for the Port," Mr Lewis said.
"It's a real coup - it's as simple as that."
The clipper is expected to be moved to a permanent site in the inner harbour in six to 12 months.
Before the clipper's arrival Mr Christopher told The Advertiser the wait would be worth it. "We're used to big delays on this project, so we're a very patient bunch," said Mr Christopher, who is well known in South Australia as the chief industrial officer of the Public Service Association.
More: City of Adelaide to spark Port Adelaide rebirth
More: Follow the City of Adelaide's final journey here
"The excitement and the sense of satisfaction is bubbling away, but really I've been too busy with media commitments to focus on what we've achieved.
"I've sent out over a thousand email communications just this month alone."
The History Channel, which in Australia screens on Foxtel, is the latest international media organisation to take an interest in the story of the purpose-built migrant transporter that played a vital role in the development of South Australia.
It is estimated that 250,000 modern Australians - more than 1 per cent of the population - had a relative who travelled here aboard her.
The current excitement is a long way from the turn of this century when the ship was abandoned as an unloved rotting hulk in Scotland.
The writer of several books on shipwrecks, Mr Christopher became aware of her plight on reading an article about her in The Advertiser in June, 2000.
A month later, the core of the group that eventually formed to save the Adelaide met in his Athelstone living room.
More: Homecoming is a dream come true
"After that first meeting, I contacted The Advertiser and the campaign really started in earnest from there," he said.
Appropriately for a ship specifically commissioned in the 1860s to transport immigrants from the UK to the "free settlement" of South Australia, the City of Adelaide has made her final journey as a passenger.
The roaming trip home included stopovers in London where - in front of a worldwide audience of 160 million - the Duke of Edinburgh conducted a formal renaming ceremony.
Built in Sunderland in 1864 for wealthy Adelaide merchants, the ship had carried the name "Carrick" since 1923, when she became a training ship for the Royal Navy.
From London she was taken to Rotterdam and hauled on board the cargo transporter, MV Palanpur, for a crossing to America to pick up six massive diesel locomotives for the West Australian mining industry.
They were dropped in at Port Hedland on Australia's west coast last week.
More: Fletcher's Slip firms as clipper's final home
These meanderings reduced the overall cost of transportation but the final bill to the trust will still exceed $1 million.
That is on top of another million for the building of a steel cradle - forged in parts in Adelaide and shipped to Scotland for assembly - that allowed the ship to be protected when moved from her dry dock in Scotland to begin the long haul to South Australia.
More than $6 million has already been raised and spent on the project, but the bills won't stop now.
The clipper was due to arrive at Outer Harbor looking like a giant Christmas present but the white plastic it was wrapped in during the quarantine process in Rotterdam, Holland was ripped off by high winds recently.
It will take up to 10 hours work to cut and remove the steel supports holding the clipper's steel cradle, which is welded to the deck of the Palanpur.
In a lengthy and complex manoeuvre, the ship's cranes will then lift the clipper on to an 800-tonne barge - named "Bradley" - which will be towed to Dock One at Port Adelaide.
A firm decision is yet to be made about a final siting but the Trust - which has a firm preference for Fletcher's Slip on the north side of the Port River - has never been short of an ambitious plan.
"We are looking to establish a seaport village somewhere around the harbour and I'm 100 per cent confident now that it's going to happen," Mr Christopher said.
"What had been holding us back is people not believing we could actually get her to Adelaide - but now there is a genuine excitement and interest from all quarters to make it work. We've been inundated with people volunteering time and money - but we are going to need a lot more of both."
Considered one of the 10 great ships of the world, the City of Adelaide is already regarded as a national treasure and the expectation in some quarters is for a full restoration with mast and sails reattached.
"There are issues with that but with sufficient money you can do anything," Mr Christopher said. "We haven't set our target quite that high but perhaps it's time for somebody else to start setting higher targets for us."
SHIP OF THE AGES
1864 - 1886: Made 23 voyages to South Australia carrying passengers on her southern leg, and cargo and the odd passenger on the
homeward journey
1887: Worked as a collier between Tyne and Dover
in England
1889: Worked on the North Atlantic timber trade runs.
1893: Converted to a hospital isolation ship in Hampshire, UK
1923: Sold to British Admiralty, renamed HMS Carrick and converted to a training ship
1949: Moved to Greenock in Scotland and commissioned as a navy drill ship
1974: Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve Club of Scotland used her as club headquarters
1990: Sold for $2 to the Clyde Ship Trust
1991: Sank in unexplained circumstances
1992: Raised and became the property of the Scottish National Maritime Museum, which vowed to restore her
1999: Appeal for funds to continue restoration returned little interest
2000: Application made to demolish the ship
2000: An awareness campaign by The Advertiser led to a support group established in Adelaide that believed the ship should be preserved at all cost
2013: Placed on a barge for a final return journey to South Australia
WHY SHE'S IMPORTANT
■ The world's oldest surviving clipper ship
■ One of only two surviving composite clippers (the other is the Cutty Sark, built 1869)
■ One of only four surviving sailing ships to have taken emigrants from the British Isles to any destination in the world - the others are the Edwin Fox, Star of India and SS Great Britain (also a steamer)
■ The last survivor of the timber trade between North America and the United Kingdom
■ Part of the National Historic Fleet of the United Kingdom and listed in the prestigious
Core Collection of the United Kingdom