Anger as historic Clyde ship towed out to sea and sunk in Hawaii | UK News

A historic Clydebuilt sailing ship has been towed out to sea off the coast of Hawaii and deliberately sunk, prompting outrage from maritime conservation groups.

Falls of Clyde, built in 1878, had been moored as a museum ship in Honolulu since the 1960s but had fallen into a poor state of repair.

The Honolulu Harbour Board confirmed it had the ship towed into deep water about 25 miles offshore on Wednesday and then scuttled.

The news has been met with anger and dismay by campaigners who have spent more than a decade trying to bring the ship back to its birthplace to rebuild it.

Falls of Clyde was the first in a series of eight iron-hulled ships built in the late 19th Century by the Port Glasgow shipbuilder Russell & Co.

The ship spent many years carrying various cargoes to and from the Far East and Australasia before moving to Hawaii.

In the early 20th Century it had steel tanks fitted and was converted into a tanker to carry paraffin to the islands, where it later became a floating fuel depot before being acquired by a museum in Honolulu.

But the ship was badly damaged by a hurricane in the 1980s, the maritime section of the museum closed down and for years it has been left slowly decaying.

Enthusiasts in Scotland have spent a decade trying to bring the ship home for restoration, but were unable to reach an agreement with the harbour board which wants to redevelop the quay where it was moored.

The Hawaii Department of Transportation said the operation to remove the ship began at dawn on Wednesday and it was sunk about 25 miles south of the harbour.

It said the vessel’s name, wheel and bell were retained along with other artifacts which will be put on display.

The destruction of the historic ship has been widely criticised by maritime conservation groups both in the UK and the USA.

Friends of Falls of Clyde, a group of supporters in Hawaii, described it as “a day that will go down in infamy”.

“It is almost inconceivable that this situation has been allowed to happen,” the group posted on social media.

The group organised a farewell ceremony with bagpipers on Tuesday after learning that the ship was to be sunk the following morning.

The Tall Ship Glenlee, the charity that looks after another Clydebuilt sailing vessel moored beside Glasgow’s Riverside Museum, said it was “deeply saddened”.

David O’Neill, from the Scotland based Save Falls of Clyde campaign, said he was “horrified” at the behaviour of the authorities in Hawaii but had become resigned to the ship meeting such a fate after years of fruitless negotiation.

He first became involved in efforts to rescue the ship in 2015 when someone in Hawaii alerted him to its condition, prompting him to post an appeal on social media saying: “Old Scottish lady needs a lift home.”

A Norwegian firm which operates heavy lift ships offered to transport Falls of Clyde back to Scotland for free, but the campaign was soon embroiled in a wrangle with the harbour board over insurance costs and other conditions.

Earlier this year Mr O’Neill said an American firm won a contract to remove the ship from the harbour and it also offered to transport it to Scotland for free.

“They didn’t want to sink the ship – they had a conscience and a respect for maritime heritage,” he said.

But the deal between the firm and the harbour board fell through, and the contract went instead to another company which then carried out the scuttling.

The Hawaii Department of Transportation has been contacted for comment.

Mr O’Neill said he had seen a video showing the final moments of Falls of Clyde.

“She was towed out of harbour looking really elegant and stunning for a 147-year-old ship, unaided, not needing any pumps,” he said.

“She was still afloat and for us that’s representative that she was truly Clydebuilt.”

He said he found watching the ship go down “quite disturbing”.

“She goes down by the stern and most of the ship lifts out of the water, like in the Titanic movie.”

The businessman is now concentrating his efforts on trying to bring home a Clydebuilt ship from a different era – the Type 21 frigate HMS Ambuscade.

The warship was built for the Royal Navy at the Yarrow shipyard in Glasgow in the 1970s, and saw action in the Falklands War.

It later sold to the Pakistan Navy where it served until it was decommissioned two years ago.

Mr O’Neill said he secured the frigate for free after making a “cheeky request” to the Pakistani government, and he is working on plans to return it to the Clyde to become a museum ship.