"A Survivor". Painting by Fid Harnack, on display in Mersea Museum.
BEATRICE - SVITHIOD - ROUTENBURN.
Watercolour by Fid Harnack, RSMA.
From the Martin Dence collection, kindly donated by Alan and Bry Mogridge October 2012.
Four masted iron barque built 1881 by Robert Steele & Co., Greenock. Length 289 feet, beam 42.2 feet, draft 23.9 feet. Gross registered tonnage 2,094. Official Number 81812. Built for the Burn Line of Shankland & Co., Greenock.
1884 - 1886 Captain W. Harnell
1886 April Captain H. Holmyard
1900 Captain G. Roberts
c1901 Captain Dalrymple of Dumfries
1905 Captain F.P. Horsefall
1907 November 27. Sold to Rederi AB Navigator (John E. Olsen), Gothenburg, for £6,000 to be used as a sail training ship. Renamed SVITHIOD. Captain Anders Falberg.
1911 November 11 - January 16 sailed from Port Talbot with a cargo to Pisagua in 88 days.
1914 Sold to Svenska Australian Linjen (W.R. Lundgren), Gothenburg for SEK 127,000.
1922 Sold to Rederi AB Pollux (Alex. Pedersen), Gothenburg, renamed BEATRICE. Captain Harald Bruce.
1927 At Melbourne, having failed to get a charter for wheat, she loaded flour for Mauritius. Thence to the Seychelles and Assumption Island to load for Bluff (New Zealand). She sailed from Bluff to Melbourne in ballast in 35 days round the northern end of New Zealand having failed to beat through the Foveaux Strait and then the Cook Strait.
1928 Race with HERZOGIN CECILIE from Melbourne to Port Lincoln and then Port Lincoln to Falmouth. HERZOGIN CECILIE took 96 days Port Lincoln to Falmouth. The winds did not favour BEATRICE and she took 114 days. [There is an excellent description of this race in 'Falmouth for Orders' by Alan Villiers.
1930 made passge from Melbourne to London in 110 days with a cargo of wool.
1932 Sold to A/S Stavangers Skibsophugnings Komp. for SEK 16,500 to be scrapped.
Towed Gothenburg to Stavanger to be broken up.