The Falls of Clyde is gone
Posted by No_Pain5736@reddit | sailing | View on Reddit | 14 comments
I don't know if any of y'all care about maritime history, but I do so I'm going to share it anyway. It shook me on Friday when I learned that the Hawaii DOT had finished preparations for sinking the Falls of Clyde and she had been scuttled.
The 146-year-old Falls of Clyde was built in 1878 and was built on the river Clyde. It was originally used to transport goods between Europe and western ports, but was quickly sold to the us. She was then put on the California to Hawaii run, bringing sugar and other goods back and forth. In the early 1900s she was converted to a tanker, bringing kerosene to Hawaii and molasses back to California to use as cattle feed. In 1927 she was moved to Alaska to be used as a floating fuel depot. In 1968, the Hawaiian people urged to have the FOC moved and restored in the bishop museum, which would ultimately end her life 60 years later, as the bishop museum did not take good care of her, and by 2008 she was rotting away and in terrible disrepair. In 2008 The friends of the Falls of Clyde organization bought the ship from the bishop museum for just $1, and attempted to restore her by fundraising, with an initial goal of $3 mil, and $1.5 mil for dry docking, but the funds never came, and in 2016, the DOT seized the ship, citing her a navigational hazard. They then left her to rot for 9 more long years, refusing many groups attempting to buy her, and with absolutely no maintenance, by the end of her life she needed pumps constantly running to stop her from sinking. It was then in 2025 when the Hawaiian DOT paid $5 mil to have her stripped for scuttling. And on October 15, 2025, approximately 1 month ahead of schedule, she was towed out by tugs in the early morning around 25 miles south of Oahu and sunk.
She was the last 4 masted fully rigged ship left in the world, and the last sail tanker as well. What really upsets me about this though is that her death was almost entirely in vain as she was sunk in 12,000ft of water, making her not accessible as a dive site, and she will never be seen again.
Julesspaceghost@reddit
What a waste to not make it a dive reef if they had to sink it, and dumped all of that money into it.
Crispy-Onion-Straw@reddit
Yeah I feel like that was just insult to injury sinking her that deep.
SphyrnaLightmaker@reddit
In my entire life, I have never once seen the Hawaiian government do ANYTHING that qualified as “competent” let alone reasonable.
Damn shame she met her end this way. It’s been many years since I’ve seen her.
cinemkr@reddit
it was privately owned. the government had noting to do with it. The Bishop Museum was the incompetent stewards and also apparently embezzled funds meant to restore her.
CountryLad91@reddit
Same story with the SS United States, lots of goodwill to her and her history, no takers to fund the leviathan task of restoring her.
I will be a skosh kinder than most and say that it might be a worthwhile goal if you win the lottery or otherwise have a lot of money to burn to make a replica of the Falls, then go sailing her as a living museum, or sail her as intended carrying cargo as an eco-friendly tanker.
ppitm@reddit
An 'eco-friendly tanker' would be pretty funny. Maybe the shipping company could also advertise virgin-friendly abortions.
CountryLad91@reddit
Tanker doesn't necessarily have to carry things like oil or LNG, plenty of other liquids that need shipping.
bill9896@reddit
Everybody is so "sad" but nobody would come up with the actaul cash needed to rescue the boat. Let's be fair. It was a WRECK. Nobody wanted it enough to actually do anything, including all you all feeling sad. If we were really honest it would be obvious that there would be many other problems in the world that could be higher priority for the millions of dollars it would take to save this old boat. Of course it is easy to say that "They" should spend someone ELSE's money for this pipe dream.
ppitm@reddit
From the sound of it the State had some bureaucratic objections to the group that actually did have a contractor seeking to transport the hull back to Scotland.
IanSan5653@reddit
It sounds like they spent $5 million to scuttle it when they could have restored it for as much.
Spaceman3157@reddit
I've done the tour of the Star of India in San Diego, which is already an enormous sailing ship, and the Falls of Clyde was substantially bigger than that. Sad to see it go.
No_Pain5736@reddit (OP)
Saw her as well, beautiful ship and love that the museum still sails her, I'm extremely disappointed about the FOC outcome, as I was rooting for her the whole time. There's not a lot of happy endings in maratime preservation, so we should at least be happy at what we still have, but its still really sad to see her go.
TripAdditional1128@reddit
Reading this made me remember this blog post.
spongue@reddit
So the DOT would have saved money by funding the repair...