1909: The Launch of a “Handsome Merchant Vessel” in England

January 27, 1909

Garlandstone, a ketch (two-masted sailboat), was launched in southwestern England. In a 1996 edition of the London-based Guardian, author Virginia Spiers highlighted Garlandstone in the daily column A Country Diary.

“This handsome merchant vessel was built on the [River Tamar], built by James Goss in his yard on the Devon bank opposite Calstock,” recounted Spiers. “There, on a small patch of bard shingle, this highly-skilled, hard-working boatbuilder, with his sons and workmen, hand-sawed timber, much of it from nearby Cotehele, and fashioned it mainly into barges and boats for rowing clubs and the navy.” Spiers further stated, “Garlandstone, however, was their pride, constructed over six years, contemporary with the building of the adjoining railway viaduct.” Spiers went on to note, “Launched in 1909, she carried cargoes around Britain, to Europe and Ireland for almost half a century.”

Garlandstone was specifically designed to transport goods between Great Britain and Ireland via routes such as the Celtic Sea, River Tamar, and River Severn. This ketch was also used on a regular basis to deliver cargo between Calstock and Portugal’s capital city of Lisbon. In addition, Garlandstone was used during World War I to ferry munitions across the Irish Sea.

This ketch remained in service until 1961. She was eventually donated to the National Museum of Wales (now known as National Museum of Cardiff). Restoration work on Garlandstone began in 1990 and, six years later, she was registered as a ship in the United Kingdom’s National Historic Fleet. The restoration of Garlandstone was completed in 2000 at Morwellham Quay, a historic River Tamar port in Devon.  She was subsequently recommissioned as a floating exhibit at Morwellham Quay Visitor Centre.

Photo Credit — Gulworthy: Garlandstone by Martin Bodman (https://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/1578); licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license at https://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/1578

For more information on Garlandstone, please check out https://www.nationalhistoricships.org.uk/register/136/garlandstone