County of Peebles (ship)
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The County of Peebles , a four - masted full ship from Swansea ( Wales ), was the first iron sailing ship in the world with four masts.
Construction and launch
The ship was laid down at Barclay, Curle & Co. on the Clyde and launched in 1875. It was measured at 1614 GRT , was 85 meters long, 11 m wide and had a draft of 7.5 m.
The ship is named after the county of Peebles or Peeblesshire in Scotland , which in turn was named after its capital Peebles (dissolved in the 1970s).
The fourth mast
Revolutionary in this vessel was the introduction of a fourth mast, the jigger was called and, like foremast , mainmast and mizzen for Rahsegel - rigging was provided. To compensate for the stability of the ship, the yards were shortened and the masts were less high than those of comparable sailors. - The County of Peebles was the prototype of the four-masted full ship, of which around 50 were built before the four-masted barque proved to be more efficient.
For 23 years, the sailor transported coal from ports in Wales ( Cardiff , Penarth , Swansea ) to South America and copper ore from Chile to Great Britain (especially to Swansea as the center of copper processing). In 1898 the County of Peebles was sold to Chile. Renamed Munoz Gamero , it later served in Talcanhuano as a Hulk or tender for the Chilean Navy .
Whereabouts
The ship was put aground as a breakwater in Punta Arenas on the Strait of Magellan in the 1960s together with two other ships ( Hipparchus and Falstaff ) and became the property of the state of Chile. The Chilean Navy operates an officers' mess in the superstructure , and the sailor's lower masts are still there. However, a restoration is no longer to be expected - the hull of the almost 140-year-old ship is described as too leaky and rusty for the enormous costs to be worthwhile.
literature
- Jochen Brennecke: History of the seafaring . Salzburg 1981.