THE VETERAN SHIP.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3127, 24 July 1922, Page 2

THE VETERAN SHIP.

(By C. Fox Smith.) Among the few craft which rode safely through the recent destructive cyclone at Chinde was, it is - interesting to note, what must surely be one of the oldest ships afloat at the present time. She is now doing duty as a sugar hulk, ■•and probably no one seeing her in her present state l of fallen glory would give her a second glance, or guest? that she was originally the clipper Antiope, one of the finest ships of her day, with a history which is both strange and eventful. She was built in 1866 by Beid of Glasgow, and her active sea. career only ceased a short time ago, though, as will he seen, it had not been quite unbroken. She is thus three years older than the famous Cutty Sark, but she has had many more- ups and) downs than the celebrated China flier. Antiope sailed for some years on ar round from Liverpool to Australia, with passengers and cargo, then from Australia to* some Indian port with whatever offered, generally horses', then on to Bangoon to load rice for home. She was then sold to another Liverpool firm, and did good service in the wool trade. Next she was “sold foreign’’ to the Bussians, and was captured bv the Japanese during the Busso-Japanese war. A British Columbian firm bought her "’ben the Japanese sold her in prize, and she sailed for several years under the Bed Duster in the Pacific Coast lumber trade—until, in fact, she was sold to New Zealand owners, who used her as a coal hulk. And there, no doubt, would have been an end of her if it had not been for the Great War. AVhen tonnage began to soar, the old Antiope, like many another old sailer, was refitted and rigged and sent to sea again, only to bo wrecked while trying to make Bluff Harbor when crippled in a. gale. A salvage outfit was brought down, and tried in vain to float her for some time, and she had been all but given up as hopeless when an enterprising journalist descended into her hold by a. rope ladder and discovered the leak. She was got off, patched up, and went to sea again, and survived the war to become, as we have seen, a. sugar hulk at Chinde, and her recent experiences would seem to suggest that her hull must bo as sound as ever.