ships to save them as historic icons. The same goes for USS Constitution and H MS Victory. W hen near entire hulls are replaced with new materials, whether they be wood, iron, or steel, few clues are left for researchers who are imeresred in how these ships were origi nally built. O ne of Norway's most famous historic ships is rhe 1892 polar expedition schooner Fram, a Colin Archer design which gained fame as Roald Amundsen's vessel in expeditions to both poles. After she was retired from service, one of her former captains, Orto Sverdrup, struggled for rwenty-five years to save his ship. The Fram was finally re~cued and put ashore in a boathouse in 1935 to be ad mired by rhe whole wo rld as an histo ric ship and an example of solid and skillful wooden shipbuilding. She has become a national treasure, and, today, her wooden hull makes her the only major ship of this material left in Norway. Fram was saved seventy-five years ago and her hull is still original. Norway's three surviving iron
ships-Hansteen, Oscarsborgand Vterdalenwere all built before Fram, and they represent another important form of shipbuilding,
The lumber schooner V a:rdalen is a prototype in iron with steel frames. Built in 1891, she is believed to be the last-built iron-hulled ship still around. includes ships. With this recognition should follow an obligation by rhe governments to supervise their upkeep and nor just rely on small private non-profits to raise big money to preserve them . They may succeed in good times, bur when economies are stressed, funding dries up and ships cannot wait it out. Ir is fair to say that rhe UK has secured the rwo iron prototypes, the Great Britain
Twelve years ago, the 1874 tugboat Oscarsborg went about her usual winter duty as an icebreaker, negotiating a foot or more ofsea ice, after a new icebreaker sprung a leak. After 127 years of active duty as a salvage and coastal tug, Oscarsborg still has more than 80% ofher Bloomfield iron hull left and has never been restored. one rhar was discontinued before Fram was launched in 1893. In 2010 they are in rhe water, still Boating on their original hulls. The use of wrought iron for shipbuilding ended 120 years ago. So far, there has been little or no imeresr in preserving the aforementioned sh ips for the future, even if they are the last examples in a shipbuilding tradition bridging rhe gap berween a wooden shipbuilding tradition and ships of steel. The United Stares, rhe Uni red Ki ngdom, and No rway were once rhe three leading nations with regards to world tonnage, but today rhey all have the same problem- to fully recognize that their nation al heritage
SEA HISTORY 133 WINTER 2010-11
and the Wtirrior, large original ships made from iron, but they failed ro rake action regarding worldwide trader Lady Elizabeth, a ship abandoned, patient, bur with limited rime left. Maritime interests all over rhe wo rld were stunned a year and a half ago when the United Stares Coast G uard in H onolulu gramed permission to her owners to tow rhe magn ificent 1878 Falls of Clyde our beyond the US territorial limit and sink her in deep water. The iron-built Falls ofClyde in H awaii is rhe only four-mas ted full-rigged ship left in rheworld: 1,809 tons and266 feerlong. Just one generation after this ship's complete res-
toration from a hulk to a beautiful museum ship, rhemuseum rharownedherabandoned her. Unlike the rwo previously mentioned windjammers, whose only visitors for nearly a hundred years have been penguins and traveler-adventurers, Falls ofClyde had been open to the public in downtown Honolulu since 1968, closing less rhan rwo years ago when she was deemed unsafe. Her ownership has since been transferred to a non-profit gro up, Friends of the Falls of C lyde, bur their ability to raise enough funds to restore her is unclear and in all likelihood, despite rhe best of intentions, doubtful. Ir should be rhe US government's obligation to save and restore rhe Falls of Clyde in the interest of safekeeping its maritime heritage. If she cannot be kept in the water, they should follow Norway's model with the Fram: make a proper boat shed on land for the Falls of Clyde and keep her there for new generatio ns to interpret and admire, making her a tourist attraction of great magnitude. To sink the Falls ofClyde wo uld be an irreversible tragedy of historic proportions. She is rhe last of her class-a class that includes the most famo us windjammers the world has ever seen. ,!,
OlafT Engvig has extensive maritime experience working with historic ships and a graduate degree in maritime historyfrom the University of Oslo. He has written numerous books and articles in English and Norwegian and has worked on the restoration of several historic ships, including the sail steamship, H ansteen, among others. His book, Viking to Victorian: Exploring the Use oflron in Ship Building (2006) was reviewed in Sea Histo ry 117. For
more information, visit his website at engvig. com/olaf 37