DUNCAN FORBES

Date1817

Object NameBRIG

MediumWOOD

ClassificationsShip

Dimensionslength 68 1/12' x breadth 21 5/6' x depth 12 1/3'
Registered Tonnage: 133 ton

Object numberABDSHIP001748

Keywords

Aberdeen Built Ships

About MeYard: William Stephen & Sons

Fate: Wrecked on Mazagan beach, near Casablanca, Morocco, April 1826.

Propulsion: Sail
Description: Brigantine or Snow rigged, single deck

Owners:
1818: Ritchie & Co.
1819-23: A. Forbes & Co.
1824-25: Wilson & Co.
Initial registration at Aberdeen as no:19 in 1817.
31/10/1826: Registry closed, vessel lost.
(Aberdeen Register of Shipping (Aberdeen City Archives))

Owners:
1818-20: Master Orlando Hart Wilson
1821-25: Master Alexander Lovie

Voyages (from Lloyd's underwriters):
1818: London - Messina
1819-20: London - Faial Island, Azores
1821: London - "Orata" (location unknown, but Lloyd's List, issue 5577, Tuesday 20 March 1821 reports her at Marseilles)
1822: Liverpool - Brazil
1823: Falmouth - Hamburg
1824-25: Liverpool - Buenos Aires

General History:
15/07/1822:
For sale by public roup in Lemon Tree tavern 24 May, one eighth of brig DUNCAN FORBES, belonging to sequestered estate of Anthony Wilson, merchant and shipowner in Aberdeen. At £90.
(Aberdeen Journal)

In early 1823 DUNCAN FORBES left Liverpool for what would be a very long, unproductive and ultimately fatal visit to South America, starting with a collision in Argentina before moving west to the Pacific coast where trade in Peru was found to be at a standstill due to the war between the Spanish and the forces of newly independent Columbia under Simon Bolivar that was being waged in Peru. Returning east Master Alexander Lovie found his luck little better in Brazil and set off home with only half a cargo of tobacco and was then wrecked in Morocco three years after he had left Britain! See the following newspaper extracts:

10/12/1823:
Buenos Ayres, Sep 4 – The American schooner UNION, Paty, from Gibraltar, lost her foremast and bowsprint, and received other damage, in the Inner Roads, on the 2d September, having been run afoul of by the British brig DUNCAN FORBES, Lovie, which drove from her anchors in a gale of wind from the S.E. The DUNCAN FORBES has not sustained any damage.
(British Press, issue 6559)

20/08/1824:
1824, Feb 29 - At Lima – DUNCAN FORBES, [from] Buenos Ayres and Valparaiso
(Lloyd's List, issue 5935)

29/10/1825:
With the exception of Callao, Peru is clear of any Spanish force – Bolivar was in Upper Peru. There was no employment for shipping. The DUNCAN FORBES, also of this place [report from Aberdeen], was soon to follow the BRUCE for the River Rlate” (Caledonian Mercury, issue 16254)

28/10/1825:
1825, Oct 23 - The BRUCE, Greig, and DUNCAN FORBES, Levie, were at Bahia [Brazil] on 23rd October. Produce scarce, and freights very low.”
(Aberdeen Journal, issue 4068)

24/05/1826:
1826, Apr. 25, Gibraltar - An English brig from Bahia to this place, with tobacco, has been wrecked near Mazagan. (Mem. The brig DUNCAN FORBES of Aberdeen, Lovie, sailed from Bahia for Gibraltar about 20 January last, with about half a cargo of tobacco, and has not since been heard of.)
(Aberdeen Journal, issue 4089)