News

The arrival of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh

The City of Adelaide has had her renaming ceremony, which was attended by HRH the Duke of Edinburgh a gallery of images from the day can be seen here:

The Renaming Ceremony

If looks like the move is back on track as the Australian Government has provided the $850,000 to cover the cost of the journey from the UK to Adelaide.

More details are available form the original article below:

Dark clouds are once again on the horizon, casting fresh doubt over City of Adelaide’s planned trip to Australia.

According to “Classic Boat” magazine – link below – the recent Australian elections have left funds for the trip in doubt, which could leave the vessel stranded in the UK. And it seems the area of land made available for her may be too remote from Adelaide’s city centre.

The implications for the City of Adelaide are not yet clear, but her future now appears to be less certain than it was when she started out on her journey from Scotland.

The City of Adelaide was never officially renamed, which is thought by some to be unlucky.

So to placate Neptune before her trip back to Australia she will have a ceremony officially renaming her from Carrick back to City of Adelaide. This will be her last official act before leaving the shores of the UK for the last time.

Tickets are available from the Clipper Ship ‘City of Adelaide’ Ltd website are available here:

After a short wait for last minute preparations and tides the City of Adelaide is on the move.

She left Irvine on her trip down the coast, where she will stop over at Chatham and then Greenwich, where she will be moored near her fellow composite vessel, The Cutty Sark.

Prior to her long journey, the City of Adelaide has been handed over from the Scottish Maritime Museum to her new owners, Clipper Ship City of Adelaide Ltd.

She will soon be on her way around the coast of the UK to London, and then off to Adelaide.

Large sections of steel have arrived at the Irvine site, ready to start assembling the cradle to hold the City of Adelaide on her journey to Australia.

The cradle has been designed and built by several Australian companies, and was shipped to the UK in parts. The cradle will not be built, and tested ready and will eventually hold the City of Adelaide while she is on board a barge during her long journey.

The Scottish Culture Minister Fiona Hyslop has announced that the City of Adelaide is to be given to the South Australian group The Clipper Ship, City of Adelaide who propose to preserve her in Adelaide, see the Historic Scotland website for the full story. This is excellent news and hopefully the ship’s future will now be secured in the location where her history has, perhaps, the greatest relevance. Sensibly the Australians do not propose restoring the City of Adelaide to her original appearance when sailing but instead intend to preserve her, probably under cover. We very much look forward to seeing how their plans develop over the coming months.

An attempt by the Scottish Maritime Museum to demolish the City of Adelaide has not proceeded because demolition does not meet the conditions for ‘dismantling’ the ship stipulated by the local planning authority. Apparently the Maritime Museum, whose funding difficulties have been much publicised, do not have the funds to dismantle the ship in large pieces as specified in the planning conditions.

Our own proposals for the ship have received interest from potential funders in the UK and Australia but with the current economic climate raising funds is undoubtedly a challenge; we are continuing our efforts. We understand that both the Sunderland group and the Adelaide group are also continuing their efforts and at least one of them is now considering lower cost solutions for the preservation of the hull, without re-rigging and recreating her interior, as we have proposed.

Meanwhile some welcome publicity for the ship could be on the way. Traditional Boats & Tall Ships magazine have contacted us with a view to running an article on the City of Adelaide and the ship’s patron, His Excellency Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce AC CSC RANR Governor of South Australia, is due to visit the UK in the spring.

Following the 30 July meeting of the panel of experts overseeing the deconstruction of the City of Adelaide the Scottish Maritime Museum issued a press release which says in part:

‘The panel were briefed on a number of approaches that had been made to the Museum concerning the future of the vessel. None of the approaches had, as yet, demonstrated that they had sufficient funding to undertake the removal of the vessel from Irvine. The Chairman of the Museum Trustees, Sam Galbraith said that he and his colleagues welcomed all serious approaches to obtain the vessel but underlined the requirement that the Trustees would only consider fully funded schemes that demonstrated that the vessel would be removed from its slipway to a specific timescale. In the meantime the work of the Panel of Experts was focused solely on the need to provide an operational plan for the deconstruction of the vessel in order to meet the conditions of North Ayrshire’s planning approval.’

Details of the timescale for the planned deconstruction work, and therefore the time available for fund raising, is not yet clear.

This proposal has been prepared jointly by Buro Happold and Beckett Rankine who are the engineering team responsible for the structural design and conservation works being carried out to the Cutty Sark.

Buro Happold are one of the UK’s leading firms of structural engineers. Their projects include the Great Court at the British Museum, Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, the Danish National Opera House and Ascot Racecourse redevelopment.

Beckett Rankine are one of the few specialist marine consulting engineers in the UK. Their work consists mostly of commercial and leisure port development work although they have also worked on a number of historic ship projects including La Dame de Serk at Rotherhithe, HMS President 1918 in London, Russian Submarine U475 and most recently, Polly Woodside in Melbourne, Australia.

As well as the Cutty Sark Project, Buro Happold and Beckett Rankine are also working together on the Battersea Powerstation project and Al Khiran marina in Kuwait.

During the 17 years that the ‘City of Adelaide’ has lain on a slipway at Irvine, various proposals have been put forward for her preservation or restoration; the options considered have ranged from restoring her to seagoing condition to preserving her afloat or ashore as a museum ship.

The cost of restoring the City of Adelaide as a ship is considerable due to her composite construction and also because only her bare hull remains without fixtures, fittings, furniture or rig. As a result of the high costs no proposal for her restoration or preservation has progressed and the Scottish Maritime Museum, who own the ship, are, as a last resort, intending to cut her into sections, some of which can then be displayed under cover in museums. We do not think this is a fitting solution for one of the most historically significant passenger ships of the 19th century.

Our proposal approaches the problem of the City of Adelaide differently. Instead of restoring or preserving her as a ship, we propose to convert the ship’s hull to a unique and distinctive building while retaining the features of the hull that made the ship so successful; her iron frame, her timber planking and her lines will all be preserved.

To download an abridged version of our proposal document please click here .

On the 20th of July this proposal was submitted to the Steering Group advising on the City of Adelaide’s future with the request that they include it on the agenda of their next meeting on 30 July 2007. We have requested an approval in principle from the Scottish Maritime Museum and Historic Scotland (both members of the Steering Group) in order to enable the proposal to be put before possible funders.

This website has been launched to support a novel proposal for saving the City of Adelaide’s hull.

You can find out more and download the web edition of the proposal by going to ‘The Proposal’ section of this website.