Stanley, Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islanders, or Kelpers as they call themselves, were drawn from farming stock, and the farming life and the call of the ocean have always been incompatible. You search in vain here for the local Fish Market or for a local boat-building tradition. Fish can be found in the freezer cabinets of the local stores, coated in breadcrumbs back in the UK. Ships have never been built here; they come here to die. One imagines that every time a vessel was beached in Falkland Sound, limping in after a battering off Cape Horn, the Kelpers rushed to the shoreline to salvage planks for a new chicken coop.
In consequence, the Falkland Islands has a spectacular collection of historic ships littered around its coastline. The Charles Cooper is here: a US-built square rigger, the last remaining example of a North Atlantic packet ship. Built in 1856 at Black Rock, Connecticut, it called at Stanley en route from Philadelphia to San Francisco, only to be condemned. It has lain offshore ever since, its splendid stern decoration a prize exhibit in the Falklands Islands Museum that we visited in Stanley this morning. The Jhelum, an 1849 barque from Liverpool lies grounded just in front of the museum. It is the best extant example of a British wooden merchant sailing ship of the nineteenth century employed in world trade. The mizzen mast of the SS Great Britain is on display, opposite the Upland Goose Hotel, salvaged after the great Cape Horn gale of 1886. That ship itself has recently been taken back to its home port of Bristol, England, where it is being restored and put on public display. When launched in 1858, at the second attempt, it was the pride and joy of its designer, the great Victorian engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The largest vessel then afloat and intended to revolutionize the transatlantic passenger route, it was in service for less than a decade before joining the other redundant vessels of the Falkland Islands.
In my visits here over the years, I have gone in search of vessels from Wales, my homeland. This time last year, I located the Fleetwing, built in 1874 by Mr Jones of Borth-y-gest to carry Welsh slate to the four corners of the globe. According to her captain, she was the finest vessel he had ever sailed in, but Cape Horn did for her also. Today, my searches uncovered the Vicar of Bray, built in 1841 to carry copper ore between Wales and Chile, making extension voyages for gold seekers from Chile up to San Francisco. It now serves as a support jetty at Goose Green.
We set sail this evening bound for South Georgia. Our hotel manager and head chef have secured locally produced lamb and goose for the table, but no fish.
The Falkland Islanders, or Kelpers as they call themselves, were drawn from farming stock, and the farming life and the call of the ocean have always been incompatible. You search in vain here for the local Fish Market or for a local boat-building tradition. Fish can be found in the freezer cabinets of the local stores, coated in breadcrumbs back in the UK. Ships have never been built here; they come here to die. One imagines that every time a vessel was beached in Falkland Sound, limping in after a battering off Cape Horn, the Kelpers rushed to the shoreline to salvage planks for a new chicken coop.
In consequence, the Falkland Islands has a spectacular collection of historic ships littered around its coastline. The Charles Cooper is here: a US-built square rigger, the last remaining example of a North Atlantic packet ship. Built in 1856 at Black Rock, Connecticut, it called at Stanley en route from Philadelphia to San Francisco, only to be condemned. It has lain offshore ever since, its splendid stern decoration a prize exhibit in the Falklands Islands Museum that we visited in Stanley this morning. The Jhelum, an 1849 barque from Liverpool lies grounded just in front of the museum. It is the best extant example of a British wooden merchant sailing ship of the nineteenth century employed in world trade. The mizzen mast of the SS Great Britain is on display, opposite the Upland Goose Hotel, salvaged after the great Cape Horn gale of 1886. That ship itself has recently been taken back to its home port of Bristol, England, where it is being restored and put on public display. When launched in 1858, at the second attempt, it was the pride and joy of its designer, the great Victorian engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The largest vessel then afloat and intended to revolutionize the transatlantic passenger route, it was in service for less than a decade before joining the other redundant vessels of the Falkland Islands.
In my visits here over the years, I have gone in search of vessels from Wales, my homeland. This time last year, I located the Fleetwing, built in 1874 by Mr Jones of Borth-y-gest to carry Welsh slate to the four corners of the globe. According to her captain, she was the finest vessel he had ever sailed in, but Cape Horn did for her also. Today, my searches uncovered the Vicar of Bray, built in 1841 to carry copper ore between Wales and Chile, making extension voyages for gold seekers from Chile up to San Francisco. It now serves as a support jetty at Goose Green.
We set sail this evening bound for South Georgia. Our hotel manager and head chef have secured locally produced lamb and goose for the table, but no fish.
