Hawai'i Awards Contract to Sink the Historic Sailing Tanker Falls of Clyde
The famed sailing ship Falls of Clyde will finally leave Honolulu Harbor following the award of a $5 million contract for its removal, with ocean sinking having been settled as the ideal method of disposal.
The Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) is announcing that after nearly two decades at Honolulu Harbor, the fate of Falls of Clyde has been sealed. Having received numerous proposals on how to remove the vessel, it has settled on ocean disposal at a deep-water site at least 12 miles due south of Honolulu Harbor. Ocean disposal was one of the methods recommended in a Final Environmental Assessment issued in June last year, with the two others being dismantling and third-party acquisition. Florida-based maritime technical consulting firm Shipwright LLC was awarded the contract for its removal.
The 146-year-old vessel has been docked at Honolulu Harbor since 2008 and is currently berthed at Pier 7, where it once served as a museum ship as part of the Hawai‘i Maritime Center. The vessel was impounded in 2016 when its permit was revoked and the owner failed to remove it from the harbor. Since then it has remained in the custody of the department.
HDOT has been wanting to remove the vessel from the harbor since it was delisted from the Hawaii Register of Historic Places in November 2023. Besides, due to significant deterioration, the ship has lost most of the qualities of historic significance that originally led to its listing in the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. The ship was placed on the list because of its national significance as the oldest surviving American tanker and the only surviving sailing oil tanker left afloat, not only in the U.S. but the world.
Following the award of the contract, Shipwright has already assembled a project team with extensive experience with salvage, remediation, wreck assessments, dead ship tows, derelict vessel removal and fragile hulls. Starting next week, the team will begin debris removal and will restore the watertight integrity of the ship’s subdivision bulkheads.
The next task will be hull strength remediation to prepare the vessel to be safely towed out of the harbor in the event of a storm threat or other emergency. From next month through November, additional structural reinforcement work will be performed before the vessel is towed and disposed of in late November.
As part of the project, HDOT has ensured the Falls of Clyde will not be sunk with any treasures after working with a maritime archaeologist to catalog and safely remove all historical items from the vessel and storing the artifacts in a secured facility.
Built in Glasgow, Scotland, Falls of Clyde is the world’s only surviving iron-hulled, four-masted, fully rigged ship. The ship was constructed during a shipbuilding boom inspired in part by increased trade with the U.S., and it made several voyages to American ports while under the British flag. In 1898 the ship first changed ownership when it was purchased by Captain William Matson (of the Matson Navigation Company) and registered in the Republic of Hawai‘i.
From 1899 to 1907, the ship was re-rigged as a bark for sail with fewer crew and made over sixty voyages between Hawai‘i and San Francisco carrying passengers, sugar and general cargo. It was sold on to San Francisco-based Associated Oil Company, which installed large steel tanks in the hull to allow it to carry 750,000 gallons. For decades, the ship would bring kerosene to Hawai‘i and molasses back from Hawai‘i to California.
Falls of Clyde's removal and disposal is part of ongoing initiatives focused on the removal of inoperable vessels from its commercial ports to protect maritime facilities, improve port efficiency and support commerce. This emanates from the fact that more than 90 percent of imported goods enter the state through Honolulu Harbor.