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HOPE

Shipbuildervessel built by Alexander HALL & Co. (Footdee, Aberdeen)

Date1 February 1873

Object NameWHALER

MediumWOOD

ClassificationsShip

Dimensionslength 149' x breadth 28' 1" x depth 17'
tonnage 307 tons

Object numberABDSHIP001160

Keywords

Aberdeen Built Ships

About MeYard: Alexander Hall & Co.
Yard Number: 272.
Official Number: 65351.

Fate: Wrecked on Byron Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence while on passage
from St. Johns to Port aux Basques 31 March 1901 Crew rescued from ice by the GREENLAND (A. Hall 1872).

Propulsion: Steam
Description: Whaler, steam, screw, wood. Sister ship to the Whaler ECLIPSE.

03/03/1873. Registered at Peterhead. Owners Capt. John Gray of the Hope Seal & Whale Fishing Co.
1876: Owners R. J. Kidd, Peterhead.
1891: Owners C. McB. Kidd, Peterhead.
1892: Owners Baine & Johnston, Greenock.
1895: Hope S.S. Co. Ltd., Greenock (J. Murray & Son)

Masters:
1873 John Gray

General History:
01/02/1873: Launched by Mrs Gray, wife of the vessel’s captain. (Hall’s Yard List gives the owners as John Napier and others, so he was presumably an investor in the hope Seal & Whale Fishing Co.).
02/1880: Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the Sherlock Holmes character, while a 20 year old medical student at Edinburgh University, enlisted as surgeon for a seven month whaling trip to the Arctic circle in the HOPE. His journal is reproduced in the book 'Dangerous Work; Diary of an Arctic Adventure' published by the British Library.
08/07/1882: Sailed from Peterhead to search for the missing Leigh-Smith expedition.
10/1882: Ice damage required a rebuilt after expedition to find the EIRA.

Note: Contract cost £13,500. (Builder’s List held in the Lloyd’s Library of the Aberdeen Maritime Museum)
Steam by screw, inverted, surface condensing, compound engine, 23” x 44” with 24” stroke, 70 r.h.p. by Gourlay Brothers & Co., Dundee.