Stanley, Falkland Islands
A paradox seems to sit at the heart of the Falkland Islands community. Here is an island community, living on a remote oceanic archipelago and situated in one the world’s richest marine environment that has no maritime tradition. Search here for a fisherman’s bar or a fisherman’s cove and you search in vain. There is no local fish market or such a thing as a Falklands-style fishing-boat. It was the Bretons from St Malo, sailing here to fish from the other side of the world, back in the eighteenth century, who gave their name to the islands, Les Malouines, or as mispronounced by the Spanish, Las Malvinas. The British settlers were land-lubbers all: sheep farmers who remitted wool sacks to the mother country according to the very British mercantilist economics that had provoked the American colonies into revolt.
Other people’s ships there are in plenty, however. The British chose Stanley as the Falklands capital for its deep watered, sheltered anchorage. Many a vessel limped into Stanley a following a grueling rounding of the Horn, for repairs, refreshment or repose. Many were condemned as unseaworthy, (sometimes for good reason, sometimes for profit) and lie to this day as evocative hulks in the sound. The Charles Cooper is here, a US-built square-rigger, a last remaining example of a North Atlantic packet ship. The mizzenmast of the SS Great Britain is on display, opposite the Upland Goose, salvaged after the great Cape Horn gale of 1886. The Jhelum, an 1849 barque from Liverpool lies grounded just in front of Stanley’s excellent little museum where so much more of this story is told.
I came in search of a slate schooner from the port of Porthmadog, near my home in Wales. Porthmadog scarcely existed as a port in 1819 and by 1919 it had reverted to a local fishing port. In the intervening century, however, locally built schooners of the Western Ocean Yachting Company supplied the world with Welsh slate. I had seen numerous paintings and models of these beautiful craft back home in Wales but heard that there was only one of their kind still in existence: in Stanley. I located it today, after a morning’s search; a hulk grounded opposite the Falkland Islands Company offices. It was built in 1874 by Mr. Jones of Borth-y-gest and named Fleetwing. According to her captain she was the finest vessel he had ever sailed in. Cape Horn did for her also, but her name lives on. “Fleetwing” is today the telegraphic code word of the Falkland Islands Company. And it seemed only appropriate that the remains of this fine vessel had been roofed over to make warehouse accommodation for agricultural supplies.
A paradox seems to sit at the heart of the Falkland Islands community. Here is an island community, living on a remote oceanic archipelago and situated in one the world’s richest marine environment that has no maritime tradition. Search here for a fisherman’s bar or a fisherman’s cove and you search in vain. There is no local fish market or such a thing as a Falklands-style fishing-boat. It was the Bretons from St Malo, sailing here to fish from the other side of the world, back in the eighteenth century, who gave their name to the islands, Les Malouines, or as mispronounced by the Spanish, Las Malvinas. The British settlers were land-lubbers all: sheep farmers who remitted wool sacks to the mother country according to the very British mercantilist economics that had provoked the American colonies into revolt.
Other people’s ships there are in plenty, however. The British chose Stanley as the Falklands capital for its deep watered, sheltered anchorage. Many a vessel limped into Stanley a following a grueling rounding of the Horn, for repairs, refreshment or repose. Many were condemned as unseaworthy, (sometimes for good reason, sometimes for profit) and lie to this day as evocative hulks in the sound. The Charles Cooper is here, a US-built square-rigger, a last remaining example of a North Atlantic packet ship. The mizzenmast of the SS Great Britain is on display, opposite the Upland Goose, salvaged after the great Cape Horn gale of 1886. The Jhelum, an 1849 barque from Liverpool lies grounded just in front of Stanley’s excellent little museum where so much more of this story is told.
I came in search of a slate schooner from the port of Porthmadog, near my home in Wales. Porthmadog scarcely existed as a port in 1819 and by 1919 it had reverted to a local fishing port. In the intervening century, however, locally built schooners of the Western Ocean Yachting Company supplied the world with Welsh slate. I had seen numerous paintings and models of these beautiful craft back home in Wales but heard that there was only one of their kind still in existence: in Stanley. I located it today, after a morning’s search; a hulk grounded opposite the Falkland Islands Company offices. It was built in 1874 by Mr. Jones of Borth-y-gest and named Fleetwing. According to her captain she was the finest vessel he had ever sailed in. Cape Horn did for her also, but her name lives on. “Fleetwing” is today the telegraphic code word of the Falkland Islands Company. And it seemed only appropriate that the remains of this fine vessel had been roofed over to make warehouse accommodation for agricultural supplies.
