The ship was built in 1935 as Oiseau des îles at the Chantiers Dubigeon shipyard in Nantes on behalf of the Compagnie Francaise des Phosphates de l'Oceanie from Papeete. In 1957 the shipping company Servicios Marítimos Mexicanos from Acapulco took over the ship and had it converted to the motor ship Tuxtla . In 1968 Mike Burke, the founder of the US sailing cruise line Windjammer Barefoot Cruises from Florida, bought the ship and had it converted into a charter sailor. In 2002 the ship was donated to the Trinidad Museum, but the latter refused the donation, whereupon the ship lay in Port of Spain. In 2008 the British Virgin Islands Scuba Organization from Tortola bought the ship to sink it as a diving attraction, but abandoned the project in June 2009. In 2009 the ship was finally sold for demolition.
Ship description
The Flying Cloud was about 63 meters long, 9.7 meters wide and had a draft of almost 5 meters. The hull was made of riveted steel. The motor sailor had three masts and was rigged as a barquentine . The sail area was 1090 square meters. The ship was set up for operation with a crew of 25 and 78 passengers.
literature
Otmar Schäuffelen: The last great sailing ships . Verlag Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 1994, ISBN 3-7688-0860-2 , p.62 .
