Friday photo - Agapenor

Continuing the 'A's this week is the Agapenor, built in 1947 by Scotts of Greenock.  She was a cargo ship for the Blue Funnel line who became trapped in the Suez Canal during the six day war between Egypt & Isreal in 1967.  She remained in the Great Bitter Lake along with 13 other trapped ships until the canal reopened in 1975.  After that she was sold to Greek owners who had her refitted and returned to service.

More information from the Clydebuilt site here

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Friday phone - Adrastus

Today I started to scan in pictures in batches.  I've begun with the 'As' and the images that are in printed photo format rather than the negatives and slides.  The first of these is the ss Adrastus below.

The Adrastus was built by Scotts Greenock in 1923 for the steamship company A Holt & Co.  The records of Holt & Co. are held by Hull City Archives (details).

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Friday photo - Davaar

Today's cheeky chappy is the figurehead of the ss Davaar.  Built by the  London & Glasgow Engineering & Iron Shipbuilding Co. and launched in 1885 as a passenger cargo vessel.  She was owned by the Campbeltown & Glasgow Steam Packet Co.

More details are available from the Clydebuilt database here.

There are also plenty of mentions of the Davaar in this publication about Campbeltown Steamers by P. Donald M.Kelly: Campbeltown Steamers - 2004

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Friday photo - Magdalene Vinnen

Today's photo is a little more abstract as it just shows the rigging and mast of the Magdalene Vinnen.  This was a four masted barque, built in Germany and launched from Kiel in 1921.

Like the Padua, she was given to the Soviet Union in 1945 as war reparation and renamed the Sedov.  She is still in working operation today, used as a training vessel for the Navy and based in Murmansk.

The Australian Maritime Museum has several images of the Magdalene Vinnen on Flickr.  They are taken from their collection of photographs by Samuel J Hood who also had a passion for ships and took lots of photos of them over 72 years.  He sounds very similar to our Dan McDonald.  My favourite of theirs it this one of a sailmaker doing repairs:

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Friday photo - Charmer

First photo of 2010 and I've chosen the SS Charmer.

This was an American built ship, originally called the "Premier" and built in 1887 in San Francisco for the the Canadian Pacific Navigation Company.  She was built by the Union Iron Works of San
Francisco, and was two hundred feet long.

She was renamed the "Charmer" in 1892 when she moved to Canada following a collision with a freighter SS Willamette in heavy fog.  She would remain in Canada, changing ownership in 1903 to the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) company who owned and operated the British Columbia Coast Steamship Service.  She worked the Vancouver to Nanaimo route to Newcastle Island before being set up as the first floating hotel on the Island by the CPR.  She was finally scrapped in 1935.

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