Kurt

A four-masted barque built of steel in 1904 by W. Hamilton & Co., Port Glasgow, Scotland, as the Kurt for G.J.H. Siemers & Co., Hamburg. The hull was of the tree-island type and she was rigged with royals over double top-gallant sails. Her dimensions are 102,2x14,3x8,1 meters [335'3x46'9x26'6] and with a tonnage of 3109 GRT, 2875 NRT and 5300 DWT.
Sister ship to the same owner's four-masted barque Hans built in the same year.

1904 April 20: Launched at the shipyard of W. Hamilton & Co., Port Glasgow, Scotland, for G.J.H. Siemers & Co., Hamburg.
1914: Laid up in the port of Astoria at the outbreak of the First World War.
1917: Confiscated by the United States and renamed Dreadnought.
1917 September 18: Renamed the Moshulu when it was discovered that there already was another Dreadnought registered in the US.
1917-1920: United States Shipping Board, Emergency Fleet Corporation. Sailed with cadets for the American Shipping Board.
1920: Sold to the "Moshulu Navigation Co. (Charles Nelson & Co.)", San Francisco.
1922: Bought for $ 40.000 by Charles Nelson
1928: Laid up in Los Angeles, later to be moved to Lake Union, Seattle, and finally to Windslow, Washington.
1935 March 14: Sold to Gustav Erikson, Mariehamn, Finland, for USD 12.000 and put on the Australia-Europe weat trade.
1940 April 9: Arrived to Norway at the same time as the Germans were occupying the country. Laid up in Kristiansand during the rest of the war.
1942 March - July: Used as an accomodation ship by the Germans.
1942 November: Towed from Kristiansand - Horten, where she was de-rigged.
1947 September 18: Drifted during a storm, grounded, foundered and sank.
1947: Bought for $ 20.000 by Gisken Jacobsen and J.P. Skotnes, Narvik
1948 May: Salvaged, and bought by Tryggve Sommerfeldt, Oslo.
1948: Sold to Sweden.
1952: Sold to Hans Schliewen, Hamburg, for his fleet of sail training ships but never delivered.
1953: Bought by Svenska Landtmännens Riksförbund, Stockholm, to be used as a grain barge.
1961: Bought by the Finnish government to be used for grain storage in Nådendal. The price was 3200 tons of Russian rye.
1970 May: First bought by Disneyland, California, and then sold to an American consortium called Specialty Restaurants. Towed to New York after having been re-rigged with phoney masts and spars in Amsterdam.
1971: After a year at the South Street Seaport, New York, she was moved to Philadelphia, PA, to be outfitted as a restaurant.
1989: A fire in the galley caused the restaurant to be closed.
1990: Moved to the New York Ship Company pier, Camden.
1994: The masts was removed prior to planned breaking up of the ship.
1996 May: Moved back to Pier 34, Philadelphia, after repairs and rebuilding. Will be re-opened as a restaurant.

References:

Four- and five masted ships, general references.
Grönstrand, Lars: Tolv Åländska seglare. Monitor, Mariehamn, 1990.
Colton, J. Ferrel: Britons, Bring the Moshulu Home!
Sea Breezes Vol. 68 (1994), pp 296-298, ill.
White, James L.: Accuracy vs. Safety, Moshulu Dress Rig.
Third International Conference on the Technical Aspects of the Preservation of Historic Vessels, San Francisco, CA, 1997.
Wöhrn, Ronald: Ett skepps öden Moshulu.
Longitude, Nr 30, Stockholm, 1994. pp 74-81, ill.

Updated 2003-03-24 by Lars Bruzelius.

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