Hougomont

A four-masted steel barque built in 1897 by Scott Ship Building and Engineering Co., Greenock. Her dimensions were: 292'4×43'2×24'1 and tonnage: 2428 GRT and 2239 NRT. Rigged with royal sails over double top and topgallant sails.

Sistership to the same owner's four-masted barque Nivelle (1897).

1897: Launched at the shipyard of Scott Ship Building and Engineering Co., Greenock, for John Hardie & Co., Glasgow [?]. Captain Charles Lowe of Fife.
1901: Stranded and was partly dismasted when the tow cable parted off the River Mersey in heavy weather. [1903?]
1903 February 22: Arrived off Point Lynas after a 136 day passage from San Francisco with general cargo. [Furrer has 1901].
1903 February 27: Partly dismasted outside the Mersey under towage when the cable parted and she drifted ashore at Allonby.
1905: Captain Lowe left the Hougomont to take command of Hardie's new four-masted barque Archibald Russell.
1907: Drifted with the current in a calm past her destination which was Tocapilla, Chile, and had to sail across the Pacific to Australia to look for freight instead.
1912 March 7 - June 25: Sailed from the Bristol Channel to Iquique in 110 days. Captain J. MacDonald in command. The rounding of the Cape Horn from 50°S in the Atlantic to 50°S in the Pacific had taken 21 days.
1912 September 11 - 19 November: Sailed from Iquique in ballast to Portland, OR, in 110 days.
1913 January 5 - June 19: Sailed from Portland, OR, to Dublin in 165 days.
1915 February: Stranded in a dense fog at Fire Island, New York, but was towed off after 13 days.
1925: Sold to Gustav Erikson, Mariehamn, for £ 3500.
1932 April 20: Dismasted in a squall 530 miles South of Cape Borda 111 days out on voyage to the Spencer Gulf in ballast. A royal sail was rigged on the fore lower mast which was standing together with the mizzen and jigger lower masts and Port Adelaide was reached 19 days later. Everything useable was removed from the ship, as the costs for the necessary repairs were too high, and brought home to Mariehamn by the Herzogin Cecilie. The empty hull was later sunk as a breakwater at Stenhouse Bay.

The figurehead is preserved at the Ålands Sjöfartsmuseum.

References:

Four- and five masted ships, general references.
Athén, Sture: Hougomonts utresa till Australien 1927/28 och hur hon förlorade riggen och fick söka nödhamn i Lissabon.
Longitude No. 15, Stockholm, 1979. pp 62-77, ill.
Backman, Axel: 4-mastade stålbarken Hougomonts sista resa. London-Adelaide, 1931-32.
Ålands Sjöfart årg. 51, Mariehamn, 1989. pp 288-291, ill.
Cockell, G.A.: Hougomont's Adventures. Ship Survives Many Vicissitudes.
Sea Breezes Vol. 10, Liverpool, 1927. pp 11-14, ill.
Mierre, H.C. de: Cape Horn, 1912.
The Mariner's Mirror Vol. 51, London, 1965. pp 298. Concerning the roundning of the Cape Horn by the Hougomonts in 1912.
Ullberg, Helge: "26 år för om masten" - ett sjömansliv.
Rospiggen Nr 38, Elmsta, 1977. pp 68-85, ill.
Williams, C.H.: Cape Horn 1912.
The Mariner's Mirror Vol. 51, London, 1965. pp 53-57, ill. The rounding of the Cape Horn by the Hougomont in 1912.

Updated 1998-09-11 by Lars Bruzelius.

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