Moshulu – In the South-East Trades

The 4-masted barque Moshulu, powers through the South-East Trade Winds, in the type of weather that made sailing ship crews forget the hardships of more southern climes.

Moshulu was built as the Kurt, in 1904, by the British shipbuilder, W. Hamilton, for H. Siemers of Hamburg, who already had a large steamship fleet. One of the largest 4-masted barques ever built, she measured 102 metres(335 feet) between perpendiculars. The overhang of her counter, clipper bow and bowsprit would have added another 16 metres (50 feet) to this.

Siemers put her into the nitrate trade with Chile – her cargoes usually coal out and nitrate home.

She was in Astoria, Oregon when the United States entered the Great War, and was seized by the U S Shipping Board. The wife of President Woodrow Wilson chose her new name which was Moshulu, a Native American Indian tribe.

She traded to the Philippines, Australia and South Africa with timber. Her return cargo was usually coal loaded in Newcastle, New South Wales. In 1921 she was sold to Charles Nelson & Co. of San Francisco and made several voyages, before being laid up in Oakland California in 1922. She sailed to Melbourne in 1927 with timber, returning to be laid up in Seattle until Finnish shipowner, Gustaf Erikson bought her in 1935. He re-rigged her and put her into the Australian grain trade.

Her last commercial voyage was in 1940; she loaded grain at Buenos Aires for Farsund, in German occupied Norway and seized for use as a store ship. After the war she was bought by German ship-owner Heinz Schliewen with the intention of using her as a cargo carrying training ship. This did not eventuate and she was on-sold to an American syndicate and towed to Philadelphia to become a floating restaurant. She is still afloat in this role although the grandeur she once possessed is grossly diminished.by unsympathetic alterations.