Herzogin Cecilie

Herzogin Cecilie aground

(credit: Unknown photographer, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland,Wikipedia)

The "Death of the Duchess" a.k.a. the loss of the Herzogin Cecilie in 1936, how Gustaf Eriksons flagship grounded off Ham Rock, she was taken off and then subsequently was lost at Starehole Bay next to Salcombe. As I was visiting Salcombe and popped into their small maritime museum of local history one major incident was the grounding of Herzogin Cecilie (HC) among items of their exhibits. The entrance was free and ran on donations. The accident garnered world wide attention and people all over Britain came to see her aground.

Old brass letters from her stern that was spelling out the registry

As a Finn myself and, also having heard and read of her before, I was interested to see the local take on the foundering. I guess the popularity of HC is also testament of how much was written about her, there are reams of books written by famous and less famous authors such as Alan Villiers, William L.A. Derby, Harold A. Underhill, Basil Greenhill, Pamela Eriksson, Elis Karlsson, Georg Kåhre, Captain Sten Lille, W.L. Leclercq among many. Also online there are excellent sources in Submerged and Herzog, a blog maintained by Capt Eriksons granddaughter Britt Gow. By far the best list of sources are on Capt Mikkolas webpages.

Museum paraphernalia of HC

The exhibit had a lot of material written in folders and it detailed the average in smallest minutiae. There were letters and telegrams from Pamela Eriksson (Bourne) and Gustaf Eriksson and articles written back in the day. Some of them are in Swedish so I guess not all visitors can decipher them. The Captain during the end was Sven Erikson but for the most of GE's ownership the famous Ruben de Cloux had been Captain onboard her.   

Museum advertisement for the 90 years anniversary, in case someone is interested, save the date in the calendar, apparently the grand daughter of Sven Erikson is going to be there.

Starehole Bay from land at low tide

After the museum visit I did the trek up to Starehole Bay and tried to see if there would be anything poking out during low tide but maybe I missed the lowest tide as I could not see anything. Could also be that in these 90 years the tooth of time and sea has ground her into the sand. Below is a picture where my imagination painted some shadows of a wreck but could just as well be reflections of light as the sea rolled with low waves passing by.

Starehole Bay, shadows of the Duchess?

Starehole Bay from sea as we departed Salcombe

There was also a folder of a presentation done by during her 80th grounding anniversary. It details the day by day happenings after the grounding, her tow to Starehole Bay and her breaking against the rocks. Same can be downloaded here. Further downloads can be gotten from Kingsbridge newspaper articles detailing the news paper reporting during the grounding, 14 articles in total.

The HC Captain's salon, (credit: Bahnfrend, Wikipedia)

Today exhibited in Aland maritime museum, 

I saw this some years ago whilst I was there renewing my certificates. 

Duchess Cecilie 

(credit: by unidentified photographer, Wikipedia)

Herzogin Cecilie fully loaded

Unknown photographer, by John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Wikipedia

Herzogin Cecilie in ballast

Credit: Allan C. Green, State Library of Victoria, Wikipedia

Herzogin Cecilie aground

Unknown photographer, Our Collections of the State Library of Victoria, Wikipedia

The museum had also an article from the master model builder Malcolm Darch how he had been involved in dismantling the charthouse and shipping it back to Finland.

'HERZOGIN CECILIE' 

The Story of Her Charthouse 1936-1988

By Malcolm Darch.

April 25th 1936 was a bad day for Gustaf Erikson and Mariehamn. The dawn of the 25th found his flagship ashore at Soar Mill Cove Salcombe in Devon, England.

The subsequent struggle to salvage the 'Herzogin Cecilie' has been well documented. She had just  completed her voyage from Port Lincoln (Spencer Gulf) in Australia to Falmouth for orders in 86 days, and had set sail up the English Channel for Ipswich, where she was to discharge her cargo of grain.

On June 19th, 1936 she was refloated and moved with the aid of pumps and small tugs to a sandy cove known as Starehole Bay at the entrance of Salcombe Harbour. Being banned from entry to the port because of the risk of a health hazard, due to the wet grain gassing, it was hoped that repairs might be achieved prior to drydocking. However, an unseasonal gale broke the vessel's back and the 'Herzogin Cecilie' was sold for scrap on September 24th 1936.

Prior to the sale, many items were removed from the vessel by the remaining crew and shipped back to Mariehamn aboard 'Vera', a wooden steamer. Most of these items were no doubt reallocated to other vessels in the Erikson fleet, but one item, possibly one of the largest, that was not shipped home to Mariehamn was her beautifully varnished Charthouse, paneled externally in teak and decked in pine.

This structure was 6 meters wide by 5 1/2 meters long. 

The Charthouse was sold with the vessel and was subsequently sold to a buyer as a Summer House, prior to the new owners cutting away the metal hull for scrap.

The purchaser of the Charthouse was Lady Moore, who in the 1920's, had bought a reproduction Tudor Mansion from a building exhibition in London. At that time she travelled the South coast of England looking for a site to re-erect this large building constructed mainly of oak.

She chose Salcombe and the house having been dismantled was moved by railway to Devon and re-erected in 1926 in its own grounds.

The purchase of 'Herzogin Cecilie's' Charthouse and removal from the ship must have seemed a small task by comparison, for this enterprising Lady. 

The work was entrusted to a local salvage and building expert. His men began dismantling the structure on October 2nd 1936, and removed it in pieces from the vessel on the 9th. It was loaded onto a barge which took it into Salcombe where the Charthouse was off-loaded onto a lorry.

The three mile drive to the location of Lady Moore's house was achieved successfully on the 16th October 1936. It would appear that the task of re-erection was completed by Christmas 1936, and the whole structure stripped of its lovely coats of varnish and oiled with linseed oil.

Various modifications were made to the Charthouse, including the removal of some teak panels and replacing them with glass as opening windows on the Port side. The internal partitions having been removed, the deck beams needed extra support. This was supplied by the addition of a cambered angle iron each screwed alongside the middle pine deck beam for its full length.

The existing doors were either missing or replaced by larger doors stretching down below the level of the base of the Charthouse. The structure was relocated on a stone foundation and consequently the main bearers were cut at the sides to allow easier access at ground level.

The cost of the entire job in December 1936 was £202 pounds, including the purchase price of £25. In fact the wreck had been sold for £225 pounds to the local scrap merchants.

For the last fifty two years the Charthouse has sat in the grounds of the Tudor mansion as a Summer House. The mansion has had several names and different owners over the years.

The Author's first sighting of the Charthouse in 1974, after searching to locate it for several years, was hidden in a wood which had been planted at the time of erection. The pine trees having grown to be very large and close to the structure.

At the time in my capacity as a shipwright, my advise was sought by the owner on how to preserve the structure. The property has since been bought by Mr. Anthony Steen, M.P. I did my best and made good the areas of the roof that were accessible and advised recovering the roof at the first opportunity, which was done. Much of the roof structure was already rotten then. It transpired that fir cones were dropping onto the roof and causing leaks in the covering material and had been for years. The roof was sagging and this I shored up permanently to help the fresh water to drain clear.

I had been aware of the 'Herzogin Cecilie' since 1962, and like many others before me, had always been fascinated by the vessel. I knew that at all costs the Charthouse must be preserved and whenever ownership of the house changed, I made a point of visiting to enlighten the new owners of the historic significance of their Summer House, and under no conditions to destroy it.

This was the case with the present owner who bought the property a few years ago.

Almost to the day of her loss, the same Charthouse has been dismantled and removed from the wood and shipped back to Mariehamn.

This task was entrusted to me by the Museum and I asked another boatbuilder to assist me. It was not an easy job, but one which I was delighted to be involved with and feel very pleased that such a historic piece has gone to a safe permanent home where it will be restored properly for posterity.

The dismantling process was always full of surprises. I knew that the construction was more than substantial in order that it would withstand Cape Horn weather. When she was German owned, the Charthouse was smaller, until it was badly damaged whilst rounding the Horn possibly prior to 1910 and the opportunity was taken to extend it to allow room for the installation of wireless.

During my research to discover how it was removed from the vessel, the only detail remembered by one of the family who dismantled it, was the problem of removing the 2 1/2 metre bolts securing it to the deck, evidence was found of these.

The whole timber structure was thoroughly braced and bolted together and even the huge teak dovetails holding the four sides together were pinned with 2 cm diameter bolts. All the deck beams were dovetailed and gallery bolted. The sides had to be jacked apart.

It was possible to salvage 1 complete deck beam as a template for making replacement beams. The majority of the pine roof and beams was found to be rotten and were scrapped. The deckhouse would have sat directly on deck so the rotten floor in it was also scrapped, as it was not original.

The major task was to save the two ends and two sides and ship them carefully back to Mariehamn, complete with portholes.

Each end weighed about 1 ton, and was 13cm thick; made up of teak and pine. These had to be moved manually 100 meters through the woods and grounds to the waiting lorry.

The site was inaccessible for any heavy lifting equipment. A double track of scaffold planks was laid and the sides and ends were wheeled to the waiting lorry on a heavy duty engine trolley. This required hiring 8 men for a period of six hours, apart from the two of us already employed. All the pieces were marked to ease the complications of re-erection. Some of the 1936 markings were also found.

The prefabricated load was deposited at Salcombe to await the arrival of a big articulated trailer from Finland, which would have been unable to load the Charthouse where it stood, because the Devon roads are too small.

Loading the lorry at Salcombe was aided by the use of a fork-lift truck and the careful stowage took 4 hours to ensure that none of the teak mouldings would be damaged. This was achieved by securing softwood packing between subsequent layers and tieing down well, with webbing.

The trailer safely left the United Kingdom aboard the vessel 'Bore Queen' bound for Helsinki for delivery to Turku en route for Mariehamn on Friday 29th April 1988. (editor: this time I was doing my military service having worked on Bore Queen in 1987)

It is hoped to re-erect and restore the Charthouse by July for the start of the Cutty Sark tall ships race from Mariehamn.

It was sad to see such a wonderful artefact leave Salcombe, but a pleasure to know it was going home.

Herzogin Cecilie specifications:

Owner(s):

Norddeutscher Lloyd (1902– )
French Government ( –1920)
Gustaf Erikson (1920–36)

Port of registry:

Germany (1902–20)
France (1920)
Mariehamn (1921)

Builder: Rickmers Schiffbau AG, Bremerhaven
Yard number: 122
Launched: 22 April 1902, Completed 7 June 1902
Out of service: 25 April 1936 as she sank off Devon
Identification: Finnish Official Number 703
Call sign: TPMK (1930–36)

General characteristics
Tonnages 3,242GT, 2,786 NT
Length 102.01 m
Beam 14.10 m
Height 53.49 m
Draught 7.37 m
Propulsion: sails

Sail plan: 4-masted barque, 38,000 square feet (3,530 m2) sail area

Crew:

81 (Norddeutscher Lloyd)
31 (Gustaf Erikson)