| The Vicar of Bray was a barque built by
Robert Hardy at Whitehaven and was launched on the 22nd April 1841. In
1849, at the time of the California Gold Rush, she was part of a vast fleet
of ships that rounded Cape Horn bound for San Francisco. Carrying a cargo
of mercury, she arrived there on the 3rd November
1849, but within three days her entire crew had deserted. Capt. Charles
Duggan stayed with his ship and by paying exhorbitant wages eventually
managed to raise a crew for the return journey.
In 1870, 133 days out of Swansea carrying a coal
cargo, and bound for Valparaiso on the W coast of Chile, the Vicar
of Bray was damaged and was forced to put into
Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands for repairs. The barque was bought
by the Falkland Islands Company in 1873, and seems to have been refitted
for trading between London and the Falklands. Her career came to an end
in 1880, when her entry in Lloyds Register was appended with the note "hulked
in Stanley". Her hull was used as a jetty at Goose Green, and today, partly
submerged, still survives there. |
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