County of Peebles (ship)
.jpg) County of Peebles
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom | |
| Name | County of Peebles |
| Owner | R. & J. Craig, Glasgow |
| Route | India—Great Britain |
| Builder | Barclay Curle & Co., Glasgow[1] |
| Yard number | 252[1] |
| Launched | 5 July 1875[1] |
| In service | 1875 |
| Out of service | 1898 |
| Fate | Sold to Chile, 1898[1] |
 Chile | |
| Name | Muñoz Gamero |
| Acquired | 1898 |
| Fate | Beached as a breakwater, 1960s |
| General characteristics [1] | |
| Type | Windjammer |
| Tonnage | |
| Length | 266 ft 6 in (81.23 m) |
| Beam | 38 ft 7 in (11.76 m) |
| Depth | 23 ft 4 in (7.11 m) |
| Sail plan | Full-rigged ship |
The County of Peebles was the world's first four-masted, iron-hulled full-rigged ship. It was built during 1875, by Barclay Curle Shipbuilders in Glasgow, Scotland, for the shipping company R & J Craig of Glasgow.[3] Measuring 81.2 metres (266 ft 5 in) long, with a beam of 11.8 metres (38 ft 9 in), a draught of 7.1 metres (23 ft 4 in) and a cargo capacity of 1,614 net register tons (NRT), it was a state-of-the-art windjammer when it began its use, for the jute trade between the ports of Dundee and Cardiff in Great Britain and Bombay and Calcutta / Hooghly River in East India. Its rig was 'Scottish style', with royal sails above double top-sails and single topgallants.
County of Peebles represented an important development of sailing ship design, which allowed wind-powered ships to compete successfully on long haul routes with steamships during the last quarter of the 19th century.[4] With its success R & J Craig ordered a further eleven similar four-masted 'full-rigged ships' for the thriving Indian jute trade, forming what was referred to as the Scottish East India Line. Using the pattern of County of Peebles, the other ships ordered were also named after Scottish counties as follows: County of Caithness (launched in 1876), County of Inverness (1877), County of Cromarty (1878), County of Dumfries (1878), County of Kinross (1878), County of Selkirk (1878), County of Aberdeen (1879), County of Haddington (1879), County of Edinburgh (1885), County of Roxburgh (1886), and County of Linlithgow (1887).
In 1898, County of Peebles was sold to the Chilean Navy. Renamed Muñoz Gamero, it was used as a coal hulk at Punta Arenas on the Strait of Magellan. During the mid-1960s it was beached as a breakwater in Punta Arenas, where it lay as of 2017, with masts cut down.[5]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e "County of Peebles". Clydebuilt Ships Database. 2012. Archived from the original on 21 August 2009. Retrieved 29 July 2012.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ "Indice General de Histarmar".
- ^ "Shipping news". Otago Witness. Dunedin, New Zealand. 2 February 1878. p. 11.
- ^ Cumming, Bill (2009). Gone....A Chronicle of the Seafarers & Fabulous Clipper Ships of R & J Craig of Glasgow. Glasgow: Brown, Son and Ferguson Ltd. ISBN 978-1-84927-013-7.
- ^ "Punta Arenas, Google Maps". maps.google.com. 2012. Retrieved 29 July 2012.
External links
[edit]53°10′37″S 70°55′03″W / 53.17698°S 70.91746°W