Hamburg (barque)

"Hamburg" was a three masted barque built in 1886 at Hantsport, Nova Scotia. She was the largest three masted barque ever built in Canada . ["Life and Times of Hamburg, a Nova Scotian Barque", Darrell Burke, "Maritime Life and Traditions", No. 23 Summer 2004, pages 28-39.] "Hamburg" was one of the last of over a hundred large sailing vessels built by the Churchill family of Hantsport. Her name continued the Churchill family tradition of geographic place names reflecting the ports where they often treaded. The barque's captain for almost her entire career was Andrew B. Coldwell. "Hamburg" worked mostly Atlantic trades but also made several long Pacific voyages, rounded Cape Horn many times and made one circumnavigation of the world in 1891. She called at her namesake port of Hamburg, Germany in 1895. She was converted to a gypsum barge in 1908 and served 17 years carrying gypsum under tow from the Minas Basin to New York. Her working career ended in 1925 when she was beached at Summerville, Hants County, Nova Scotia, just across and downriver from the site of her launch at Hantsport. In 1936, her massive wooden hull was burned to the waterline, leaving her lower hull partially covered and preserved in river silt. The site now offers a rare surviving example of the structure of a wooden sailing ship from Canada's Golden Age of Sail.

References

*"Hantsport Shipbuilding: 1849-1893", St. Clair Patterson, Hantsport: Tug Boat Publishing, 2008, p. 108.
*"Sailing Ships of the Maritime" Charles Armour and Thomas Lackey (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1975), p. 150

External links

* [http://www.atlantictallships.ca/gallery.php?action=display&ID=564&OutputType=PortraitsByShip&lang=e Ship Portrait, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia "Talships of Atlantic Canada" web site]
* [http://daryl.chin.gc.ca:8000/SEARCH/BASIS/vessel/public/vessel/DDW?W%3DNAME+%3D+%27Hamburg%27+AND+RIG+%3D+%27barque%27+ORDER+BY+NAME/Ascend%26M%3D1%26K%3D21049%26R%3DY%26U%3D1 Parks Canada Ship Information Database Registry Information]
* [http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mma/wrecks/wrecks/shipwrecks.asp?ID=2040 "Hamurg" Nova Scotia Museum Marine History Database.]