- Submerged

Mizzen Mast Of The Great Britain

Mizzen mast of the Great Britain

Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the Great Britain was launched at Bristol in July 19 1843, and was the largest ship afloat in the world at that time. She arrived storm damaged at Stanley in 1886 and remained for over eighty years being used for various storage purposes, and became a familiar part of the landscape.

what’s left of the Mizzen mast

Finally abandoned and rotting she was recovered from these waters in a truly amazing salvage operation, transported back to Bristol on a huge barge, arriving in July 1970 where she underwent full restoration and is now open to the public.

All this was made possible due in large part to the generosity of Sir (Union)Jack Hayward O.B.E.

Looking towards the main jetty

Jhelum

The Jhelum is a 128 ft boat built in 1849 at Liverpool. Her name comes from a tributary of the Indus river in India. She left Calloa for Dunkirk on the 13 July 1870 overloaded, and rounded Cape Horn with great difficulty.

The Jhelum

She managed to put into Stanley on 18 Aug 1870 and her crew had so little faith in her ability to complete the voyage that they refused to put to sea in her.

The Plans of the Jhelum.Photo stanley museum.

The ship was sold locally and scuttled in her present location to serve as a jetty cum workshop and storage area.

Jhelum bows

Port Stanley, Falkland Islands Wreck Trail

In 2007 I was lucky enough to go down to the Antarctic on M.V. Discovery. On the way we stopped at the Falkland Islands where, amongst all the wonderful wildlife, they also have lots of abandoned clipper ships and other vessels.

M.V. Discovery at the Antarctic Peninsular

Many are on the other Islands, which I did not have time to see, but a few are easily accessible around Port Stanley, and there is a great museum to go and find out more.

Falklands Overview

Jhelum

Gentoo and Golden Chance

Lady Elizabeth

Mizzen mast of Great Britain

Gentoo And Golden Chance

Named after one of the Falkland islands most common penguins, the Gentoo came to the Falklands in 1927 and then spent many years carrying supplies and wool for the farming company Dean Brothers. She later passed into the ownership of Bill Hills until 1981 when she was sold to a new arrival to the islands, who intended to convert her to a houseboat. However when she was put on a new mooring she rested on the bottom and heeled to starboard and the rising tide flooded her.

Gentoo

All I know about the Golden Chance is that she was built in 1900’s and came to the Falkland Islands in the 1940’s for sealing protection.

Golden Chance

Falkland Islands Overview

The Falkland Islands have a total land area half the size of Wales and are made up of two main large islands, and over seven hundred small ones. The islands are basically very hilly, barren and windswept rather like Dartmoor or the Brecon Beacons, and you can have sunshine and sleet in the space of a few minutes. Because of the fierce winds there are no trees on the islands and gorse bushes had to be introduced to form some sort of wind break for the sheep, which form the main farming industry.

Looking away from the main part of Stanley.

Nowadays the population is nearly three thousand strong, of which two thousand live in Stanley. The remaining one thousand live on their sheep farms, which are collectively called The Camp. However the humans are vastly outnumbered by the various species of penguin, which number just under half a million breeding pairs. Since the end of the War in 1982 much has been done to improve the lives of the Falkland Islanders. New roads have been built along with schools and a hospital. All this has to some extent halted the drift of young people moving away.

The Post Office, note the telephone boxes.

Economically the Islands are now much more prosperous mainly due to the fishing which brings in upwards of 24 million pounds a years due to fishing licences in their 200 mile unilateral zone. Tourism is also starting to make an ever bigger contribution. There is oil to be found at the moment but not in economic amounts, but if that happens then the population will definitely increase.

The Liberation Monument

Although first sighted in 1592 by the English seafarer John Davis in the ship Desire, it took until 1690 for the first recorded landing by a Captain John Strong, who claimed it for Britain. Almost certainly other seafarers had sighted the islands over the years, and that’s how Argentina’s claim started. In the 1840s the island’s capital was moved for purely Naval reasons from Port Louis to Port Stanley and was named after the Colonial secretary of the day.

Looking towards Stanleys main jetty.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the Falklands became very important strategically for Britain who used the islands as a major coaling station for their Atlantic fleet. During the Great War the first battle of the Falklands ensured the Britain’s supremacy over the German Fleet and secured the passage around Cape Horn, which at the time was vital to Britain’s interests. Cape Horn is notorious for its fierce storms, and as the amount of shipping increased with the expansion of world trade and the coming of the whaling fleets, the Falklands were perfectly placed to provide repair facilities for storm-damaged ships.

A grim reminder of the war. there are still plenty of minefields around.They will take years to clear.You can buy maps at the tourist office.

Many of the ships that limped into Port Stanley were often too badly damaged to be repaired and they were just abandoned where they ran aground, and you can still see them to this day.

Abandoned clipper ship.

Incidentally during the Second World War, H.M.S.Exeter retired badly damaged to Port Stanley after taking her part in the battle of the River Plate, which sealed the fate of the mighty Graff Spee. The museum has some great photos of her. In the sixties she became part of H.M.S.Bellerophen in Portsmouth where she trained young seamen and Royal Marines, like me, in the art of seamanship.

Lady Elizabeth

The Lady Elizabeth was a three masted barque, 223 ft long,1208 tonnes built in Sunderland by R. Thompson in 1879. her hulk now lies in Whalebone Cove to the east of Stanley harbour and is one of the best preserved wrecks in the Falkland Islands.

Lady Elizabeth

Up until 1889 when she was delivering bricks and cement for the construction of Stanley Cathedral, the Lady Elizabeth had had an uneventful career, but that changed in 1913 when she came to rest in Stanley harbour after her voyage from Vancover to Delagoa Bay in Mozambique was cut short. The vessel, under Captain Peterson, was battered by gales 300 miles south west of Cape Horn, loosing her deck cargo and four crew men overboard in the fierce storm.

The Lady Elizabeth limped into Berkley Sound on 12 march 1913 and on the approach to Stanley harbour she struck the Uranae Rock putting a large hole in her hull and doing considerable damage to her keel. She was eventually towed into the harbour where she was condemned as un-seaworthy and was sold to the Falkland Island Company along with her valuable cargo of timber for a mere 3350 pounds.