The Republican journal., 1911-03-02
The Last of the Clippers.

Passing.
The New York Times prints the follow
ing interesting story: The recent pass
ing of the great fleet of ships which sail
ed under the Sewall flag has been follow
ed by news that the Loeb Line,
which for fifty years has been the big
gest fleet of clipper ships sailing the
seven seas, is to be broken up. To every
port they carried the Loeb Line flag, and
now the order has gone out that the few
ships left are to be sold. Since the late
sixties, when the first of the Loeb Line
flag sailed from Glasgow on her maiden
voyage to Australia, more than thirty
swift clipper ships have been built or
bought by the line. Of that number only
five or six are still in service. In as
many sections Of the globe lie the wrecks
of seventeen or more, which cost the lives
OF more than 400 persons. Battered by
seas and dismasted by winds, three have
been converted into coal barges, and one
has been broken up. In its day it was
the mightiest fleet of sailing vessels ever
assembled under the flag Of single line.
In every case but one of the lost seven
teen captains and crews, and in many
cases passengers, all We're lost. 1t was
in the latter part of the sixties that the
Loeb Line was organized with the Clan
ranald, Ben Nevis and Loeb Awe, char
tered by the Glasgow Shipping Company,
and started on trading trips. The line
was to have been known as the Clan
Line, but the registration of the trade
mark "Clan" by another line forced the
adoption of the other Scotch prefix for
its clippers. So successful were the three
under charter that six ships were ordered
built, all on the same model. These were
the Locks Katrine, Ness, Tay, Earn, Lo-
mond, and Leven.
The Katrine launched first, and on De-
cember 20, 1869, she sailed from Glas-
gov. AS fast as the others were ready
they followed the Katrine, in each case
the maiden voyage being made to Hob
sons Bay, Australia. Of the six the
Tay made the best record. Her arrival
on February II, 1870, in Australia ended
a voyage of only 70 days. Fer nine con-
secutive days the Tay logged an average
of 2S5 knots, her banner day being 1865,
which is much better than many steam
ers make today in transatlantic passages.
The first of the sister ships to come to
grief was the Loeb Leven. Only one
voyage had she made, when on October
%, 1871, she ran ashore on Kings Is
land, in the Pacific, and was a total
wreck. Captain Branscombe, her skip
per, was the only man drowned. He had
reached the shore safely, and was re-
turning to the wreck to recover the ship S
papers when his boat was overturned.
The night of November q, 1873, in mid
atlantic was bright and starry. The
Loeb Earn, bound for this port, was
bowling along at ten knots, with the
wind astern, when she crashed full tilt
into the French passenger steamship
Vile du Havre. How the accident hap
pened is not known. Both boats were in
sight of each other for half an hour, but
the bow of the clipper cut the steel side
of the steamer to the waters edge.
Captain Robertson of the Loeb Earn
stood by and rescued sixty-one of the
Vile du Harve's crew, and twenty six
passengers. When this had been accom-
plished, the steamer went down, carry
ing with her 226 persons.
The next day the Tremontaine, an
American ship, bound for Cardiff, hove
in sight, and the Vile du Havre's pas
sengers were transferred to her. The
Loeb Earn then continued on her way,
but the collision had injured her so she
sank, and her crew took to the small
boats. They We're saved by passing
ship and brought here. For forty years
the Loeb Lomond had an adventurous
career till in 1905, when she was sold.
Three years later she was lost in hur-
ricane in the South Atlantic, with Cap
tain J. Thompson and his crew of nine
teen men. The Loeb Ness and Loeb Tay
were sold for hulks in August, 1898. and
now are doing duty as coal barges. Both
passed through terrible storms which
dismasted and otherwise damaged them,
and they were not considered worth re-
fitting. They lie side by side in AIDE
laide, Australia. The Loeb Katrine, first
of the six, arrived at Sydney on May
10, 1909, so battered by storm and wave
that she, too, was sold as a barge.
Between18 and 1875 five ships were
added to the fleet. They were the Loeb
Ard, Loeb Maree, Loeb Laggan, Loeb
Vanachan and Loeb Rannoch. But i'll
luck pursued this family of sisters as it
had the other. On her maiden trip in
1874 the Loeb Ard twice was dismasted
before she succeeded in getting started.
Twice she had to put back to Glasgow to
be refitted. With this inauspicious start
it is not surprising that she came to be
looked on as hoodoo ship, and the
hoodoo chung to her until 1878, when, on
June LIST, she was lost on her third trip.
Captain Glib, her skipper, had been mar
ried week before he sailed, but his
bride never saw him again. When al
most within sight of Hobson's Bay the
Loeb Ard was wrecked at Curdic's Inlet,
twenty-seven miles from port. Of her
crew and passengers only two
survived. One was Tom Pearce, mid
shipman, who saved one passenger, a
Miss Emily Carmichael, by swimming
with her to shore. Pearce later became
a commander with the Royal Mail Steam
Packet Company. He died in December,
1907.
The Loeb Maree, like the Ard was dis
masted on her maiden voyage and forced
to return to Glasgow to refit. She was
exceptionally well built, but that did not
save her from the fate of her sisters.
On Oct. 20, 1881, she cleared Port Philip
Heads for Geelong, to load for New York,
and was never heard of again.
That ill-luck follows a change in a
vessels name is an old sea superstition,
and it was exemplified in the Loeb Ran
noch. The Rannoch was one of three
sisters, built by Cornell & Co. of Glas-
gov, first known, respectively, as the
America, Asia and Africa. The Africa
left the Clyde in 1872, bound for India,
and was never seen again. A like fate
attended the Asia which left Bombay in
1873. The Americas name was changed