Western Ocean Yachts

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The Birth of a Famous Class of Sailing Ships[edit]

The Western Ocean Yachts were a class of three-masted schooners built in Porthmadog from 1890 to 1913. The first built was the Blodwen and the last the Gestiana. Thirty-three were built from 1891 to 1913 by different builders in and around Porthmadog but they were not uniform in size or some details. This was the last great flowering of wooden deep-sea commercial sailing ship construction in the UK.[1] For the list of their names, see Portmadoc Maritime. They were the ultimate development of the small wooden merchant sailing ship in Britain.[2] Porthmadog shipbuilders never built steel-hulled ships.

Launch of the First[edit]

Blodwen was launched in February 1891 and a local reporter for the Cambrian News tells us that the launch was successful in every way. The new ship was named by Miss Richards, a member of the same family of Messrs. Richards and Company, Shipowners and shipbrokers of Porthmadog who with others had placed the order with the ship builder David Jones.[3] After a hectic time building ships in the 1870s Porthmadog had been quieter during the lull of the 80s when the shipbuilders and their supply trades, the foundries, rope walks and chandlers etc. had had to get by on refitting and renewing the fleet based in Porthmadog. It was about five years since the last ship had been built in the port.

The Last Porthmadog Ship - A Record Breaker and Her End[edit]

These vessels, with their mainly fore- and after-sails which (unlike square rigged sails) were controlled from the deck, gave an excellent compromise between manning costs, speed, carrying capacity and seaworthiness. A very important route was Porthmadog to the River Elbe in Germany (leading to Hamburg) and when the winter laying up period came to an end, the number of ships laden with slate leaving Porthmadog on the same tide was probably only limited by the capacity of the Porthmadog tugs. The record passage from Porthmadog to the mouth of the River Elbe was 4.5 days and it was held by the Western Ocean Yacht the M. A. James. According to Hughes she was seen by a Porthmadog sailor tacking gaily down the Clyde in August 1944 with a Sinn Fein ensign painted on her side.[4] This report seems to be in error or the date misremembered.[5] At some point during the war she was used as a barrage balloon ship and for this purpose her masts would have been removed. By 1946 she was laid up in the River Torridge in North Devon at Northam.[6]

  • The M A James, a Porthmadog three-masted schooner of the type called Western Ocean Yachts. The photo is from the Graham Farr collection of the North Devon Maritime Museum. She is shown entering Cumberland Basin, Bristol, on 24th February 1937.
    The M A James, a Porthmadog three-masted schooner of the type called Western Ocean Yachts. The photo is from the Graham Farr collection of the North Devon Maritime Museum. She is shown entering Cumberland Basin, Bristol, on 24th February 1937.

In the picture above the M A James had a (possibly second hand) Widdop 70 bhp engine manufactured in 1924 fitted to her in Appldore in 1930. That is what is propelling her into the dock. She has had her square rigged sails on the foremast removed to simplify the rig and reduce the manpower needed to sail her. She was owned by the Slade family of Appledore who had bought her from Plymouth in 1930 after a long period when she had been laid up there.[7] She was returned to Appledore after the war but the cost of repairs were estimated to be more than her value. She was condemned and Slade's sold her to P. K. Harris, ship builders and repairers. Her last job was when she was used following an accident when a luffing crane fell over at Newquay at the end of 1952 and went across the steamship Radstock, To release the ship the hull of the M A James was used and it was well ballasted and floated under the end of the crane. Ballast was removed and the next tide saw the M A James lifted higher out of the water enabling the Radstock to be released. She ended up at Snuffy on the mud where she remains to this day. Hughes and Eames say she was the last Porthmadog ship - they were probably excluding steamers.[8]

  • The remaining timbers of the hulk of the M A James in the mud of the west bank of the river Torridge between Bideford and Appledore on 19th April 2022.
    The remaining timbers of the hulk of the M A James in the mud of the west bank of the river Torridge between Bideford and Appledore on 19th April 2022.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Porthmadog Ships, Hughes E and Eames A,(1975) Porthmadog Ships, Gwynedd Archive Services, pp 355 - 399
  2. ^ Porthmadog Ships, Hughes E and Eames A,(1975) Porthmadog Ships: foreword by Basil Greenhill, London Maritime Museum, p 12.
  3. ^ Porthmadog Ships, Hughes E and Eames A,(1975) Porthmadog Ships, Gwynedd Archive Services, p 355.
  4. ^ Hughes H (1969) Immortal Sails, T Stephenson & Sons Ltd., Prescot, Lancs. pp 184 - 188.
  5. ^ Guegan Michael, (2020) North Devon Maritime Museum Archivist, personal note to Temple M on 26/3/20.
  6. ^ North Devon Maritime Museum (2019) Facebook post with picture on 28th October 2019
  7. ^ Guegan Michael, (2020) North Devon Maritime Museum Archivist, personal note to Temple M on 26/3/20.
  8. ^ Porthmadog Ships, Hughes E and Eames A,(1975) Porthmadog Ships, Gwynedd Archive Services, p 138.

See also[edit]

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