State officials are now working to remove the Falls of Clyde from the Hawaii Register of Historic Places.

The announcement by the Hawaii Department of Transportation on Wednesday is the latest chapter in years-long efforts to remove the historic ship as it seeks to redevelop Pier 7 at Honolulu Harbor, with opposition by groups still hoping to save the vessel.

The Falls of Clyde, built in 1878 in Port Glasgow, Scotland, is the last remaining example of an iron-hulled, four-masted sailing oil tanker, according to the Honolulu-based nonprofit Friends of Falls of Clyde, with an extensive history in Hawaii as a Matson transport ship and museum.

The vessel was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, and designated a national historic landmark in 1989.

The proposal is to be presented to the state Historic Places Review Board on Aug. 11, citing the ship’s loss of historical integrity.

DOT says the delisting is needed to “facilitate the disposition” of the vessel moored at Pier 7 as its condition continues to deteriorate.

But Bruce McEwan, president of Friends of Falls of Clyde, said since 2014, the state has pushed to remove the ship instead of working with the group, which in good faith had provided a dry dock plan and never gotten a response.

“While we cannot rebut the delisting process, we do still feel that the ship could in fact be restored,” McEwan told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “But it’s a matter of having the resources in place and finding somebody who has the money to do it.”

The Falls of Clyde is recognized internationally as part of maritime history, he said, on the brink of turning 145 years old this year. The Scotland-based group Falls of Clyde International is still interested in restoring the ship to its former glory in the vessel’s birthplace.

The removal of the ship’s historic designations would clear federal requirements that stand in the way of scuttling it, he said, first at the state and then national level, with the ultimate decision up to the U.S. Secretary of the Interior.

The DOT Harbors Division, which impounded the ship in 2016, has made numerous attempts to remove the Falls of Clyde from Honolulu Harbor, including a failed public auction in 2019.

By the auction’s deadline, the state had received no qualified bids. The only bid turned out to be a joke — in the form of a typed letter offering 25 cents signed by someone purporting to be Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In 2021, DOT put out a bid requesting proposals for the removal of the Falls of Clyde from Honolulu Harbor while complying with federal, state and county law.

It received two responses by the deadline, and had issued a conditional award to Falls of Clyde International Inc. in Scotland. But DOT said the group failed to secure a performance bond after five months, and the agency canceled the conditional award.

DOT said a recent survey it commissioned in March found that the structural integrity of the Falls of Clyde has deteriorated substantially over the years.

The report noted a strong risk of the ship sinking, that it is leaking, and failure of pumps would lead to catastrophic flooding due to holes in the hull, failed rivets and patches from previous repairs. It also said the Falls of Clyde was not likely to survive afloat or be intact by 2024.

The Scotland group disputes that the ship has deteriorated to the level claimed by the state. Once scuttled, the group said this piece of maritime heritage will be lost.

But the state says it pays a contractor to monitor water levels and pump from the ship’s hull, and that without this intervention the Falls of Clyde would likely sink, list or damage surrounding facilities.

“This step is not at all a reflection of the vessel’s important history,” said DOT in a news release. “HDOT has an obligation to ensure public resources, including commercial harbors and related infrastructure, are being managed effectively.”

Alan Downer, state historic preservation division administrator, said a property can only be delisted if it meets one of three criteria: if it has lost historical integrity to the point of no longer being eligible, if there was an error in professional judgement in the original determination or if there was an administrative error in the listing.

The review board has authority over the state register of historic places, so a vote to delist the Falls of Clyde would go into effect at the August meeting.