Falls of Clyde – A Glorious Fair Wind by Robert Carter
We continue our series on the marvellous paintings by Robert Carter OAM, FASMA, FISMP of the sailing ship era and recently published in The Marine Paintings of Robert Carter1.
Robert is one of Australia's leading marine artists and is also joint founder of the Australian Society of Marine Artists with Dean Claflin.2 You can read more about Bob's biographical information by clicking here.
In this publication Bob has presented his paintings in five parts and we will follow this same format. Today we are going to start looking at Part Two: British Sail and we will showcase Robert's wonderful painting of the four-mastered ship Falls of Clyde.
The four-masted ship Falls of Clyde powers through the south-east Trade Winds towards the Cape of Good Hope and the trek through the Indian Ocean to India where she will load jute and/or rice for the UK.
She was built in 1879 by Russell & Co. at Glasgow, for the India trade, taking out general cargo, steel products and cement and returning with jute or rice. She often went on to Australia, New Zealand, China and North America and loaded many cargoes of wheat from US west coast ports.
In 1898 she was sold to Captain Matson of San Francisco who put her into the Hawaii trade taking out freight and passengers and returning with sugar. In 1907 he sold her to the Associated Oil Co. Of California and she became a sailing oil tanker, still in the Hawaii trade. General Petroleum bought her in 1920 and she made just one more voyage under sail before being turned into an oil storage barge.
Museum ship
After 37 years at Ketchikan in Alaska she was towed to Honolulu to become a stationary exhibition ship for the Hawaii Maritime Center. Re-rigged as the four-masted ship as she was originally built, she is listed in the National Register of Historic places.
Falls of Clyde led a varied life and is still afloat in Honolulu as a museum ship.
In 2018 a syndicate has been formed to return her to Scotland, where it is hoped she will be restored to sailing survey.3
© Thank you to Robert Carter who kindly gave permission for the image of his work to be shared on AnArt4Life.
Please check out the Robert Carter Website.
And also the site for the Marine Artisits Australia.
The next glorious vessel in our Robert Carter Marine Series will appear in about a week.
Credits
1. The Marine Paintings of Robert Carter , Published in Australia by Robert Carter Maritime, Gosforth NSW, 2320, Australia, 2022
2. Correspondence with Robert Carter
3. robertcarter.com.au