Hawaii Issues RFP for Removal, Likely Scrapping, of Historic Sailing Ship

After eight years of struggling to resolve the fate of the now 145-year-old famed sailing ship Falls of Clyde, the Hawai‘i Department of Transportation (HDOT) reported on July 25 it released its request for proposals (RFP) for the removal of the ship. The state has argued that the vessel is now severely compromised and a 2023 report on its condition warned there was a strong risk it would sink.

“It is likely that Falls of Clyde will not survive afloat, above the water, nor even be intact by 2024,” the report concluded as the state moved to deregister the vessel as a National Historical Landmark and sell it for disposal. “The loss of the vessel is irreversible and extremely unfortunate if not tragic. It is a unique surviving sailing craft, and its historic significance is clear. However, the vessel has already lost most of the qualities, or aspects of integrity that convey its significance, that led to its listing in the National Register and its designation as a National Historic Landmark.”

The vessel is currently berthed at Pier 7 in Honolulu where it once served as a museum ship as part of the Hawaii Maritime Center.  The vessel is privately owned but was impounded in 2016 and remains in the custody of HDOT. Several previous efforts were made to sell the vessel and there was a plan to take her back to Scotland, but it did not proceed. 

HDOT wants to redevelop the pier where the vessel lays. The government highlights that the pier has been dormant now for 14 years after the Bishop Museum closed the Maritime Center. With no viable plans for the vessel and its condition rapidly deteriorating they concluded that removal was the only option. The state has spent the past year completing the necessary environmental reviews. Curators have also been going through the vessel to catalog and document artifacts.

The Falls of Clyde was built in Glasgow, Scotland in 1878. Her association with Hawaii is especially strong because she was acquired in 1898 by Captain William Matson of the Matson Navigation Company and registered in Hawaii. From 1899 to 1907, the ship made over sixty voyages between Hawaii and San Francisco, carrying passengers, sugar, and general cargo. She was later sold to San Francisco-based Associated Oil Company, which installed large steel tanks in the hull, allowing her to carry 750,000 gallons of liquid bulk. For decades, the ship would bring kerosene to Hawaii and molasses back from Hawaii to California.

By around 1900, she had been downrigged to a bark and by the 1920s the yards, topmast, and royals were removed and she would spend years as floating oil storage and a “filling station” in Ketchikan, Alaska. Efforts at the preservation began in the 1960s after she was retired from her function in Alaska and it was feared she would be scrapped or sunk to form a breakwater. The vessel was rescued from obscurity and returned to Honolulu in the 1960s. Restored to her original form, she was opened to the public in the 1970s. 

HDOT evaluated removal by dismantling, ocean disposal, or third-party acquisition in its Final Environmental Assessment issued last month.  The report concludes the state of decay is irreversible. The selected contractor will determine the method of removal with bids due by September 25.