History is the realm the Falls of Clyde occupies, but time has been its enemy.
The four-masted oil tanker, launched from Port Glasgow, Scotland, in 1878, is touted as the only one of its kind remaining. Some heroic efforts have been made to carve out space for its rehabilitation as an artifact of Honolulu’s maritime past.
Unfortunately, the clock has run out, and state officials are justified in calling for an end to the restoration enterprise in Honolulu Harbor.
The state Department of Transportation Harbors Division on Thursday issued an eviction order for the iron-hulled ship to be hauled from its berth at Pier 7.
The rusting ship “poses an unacceptable risk to navigation in Honolulu Harbor and a safety and security risk to harbor users,” according to the statement from DOT.
The Bishop Museum, which incurred more than $2 million in preservation costs over the course of a decade, sold the ship for $1 to the Friends of Falls of Clyde, a nonprofit that took ownership in 2008 to save the ship from being scuttled.
At that time, the museum had estimated that the cost of restoration, including rust removal, would total $32 million.
The Friends are trying to raise funds to dry dock the vessel for needed hull repairs.
The campaign, started last year, aims to raise
$1.5 million for dry dock, but commitments so far only amount to $145,000.
The group is challenging the legal process of its eviction and plans an appeal of the DOT decision. Regardless, the long dormancy of the project, and the discouragingly slow pace of fundraising, underscores the reasonableness of the department’s action. This project will require mammoth sums for completion, and prospects seem dim.
The DOT, in a written statement, said it “recognizes and appreciates the historic and maritime value of the Falls of Clyde.” However, the state Harbors Division correctly emphasized that it has an overriding duty to protect Hawaii’s principal port.
The DOT and the Friends are at odds over the level of risk the ship poses to the harbor. But setting even that issue aside, the organization would make a stronger case for keeping it berthed, free of charge, had it been able to demonstrate its fundraising capacity more convincingly. There are better ways that space could be put to productive use.
The Falls of Clyde is also the collective name of four waterfalls on the River Clyde near New Lanark, South Lanarkshire, Scotland. The ship became part of the Matson Navigation Co. fleet in 1898. It carried sugar from Hilo to San Francisco but was sold to Associated Oil and was converted to an oil tanker in 1907.
After its retirement, searches for a permanent home ultimately ended here in 1971, when the Bishop Museum opened it for public tours.
The fruitless quest for restoration funds is a sad testament to the difficulty of historic preservation, but without that kind of support, the end to a ship’s long and colorful story seems undeniably at hand.
