Just a few months ago, no one would have thought that 2022 would be the last year in the history of the Earl of Pembroke. The wooden tall ship, which has appeared in numerous films, went to the demolition shipyard in Kampen, the Netherlands, on December 2.
Krzysztof Romański, 5th December, 2022
If you haven’t met her live, chances are you’ve seen her on the big or small screen. The Earl of Pembroke holds the record among modern tall ships for film appearances. The wooden vessel played her part among others in „Treasure Island”, „Alice in Wonderland” (2010, directed by Tim Burton), „Cloud Atlas” by the Wachowski brothers, „The Count of Monte Cristo” (directed by Kevin Reynolds), or in the entire series about Hornblower. Unfortunately, the ship’s last role will be of firewood. How did it happen?
At the turn of 2014 and 2015, the 44-metre vessel changed hands. A businessman of Russian provenance became her owner. Hence, e.g. sewing a set of red sails, as a reference to the name of the new operator, yet also the book „Scarlet Sails” by Aleksander Grin, extremely popular in Russia. The ship, however, was still under the British flag, but had her base in Den Helder, the Netherlands. The trouble began in 2018 when she hit a buoy while cruising down the Thames. The collision did not turn out to be serious, but the hull began to leak. It seemed that the crew would be able to deal with the problem on their own. When the damage turned out to be more serious (although still not a threat to shipping), the vessel was withdrawn from The Tall Ships Races 2018 at the last minute and moved to the Netherlands, where she was to undergo repairs. After docking and hull maintenance, the ship was moored in Den Helder. As it turned out later, permanently. Meanwhile, the crew continued repair work, yet the problem of the leak could not be fully resolved. The tall ship could not sail, so did not make any income. And the cost of maintenance did not decrease. They could not be covered by the hotel business (the ship’s offer appeared on AirBNB, advertised with the slogan: „Spice up your travel stories, stay on a pirate ship!”). The owner fell into financial difficulties, there were delays in payments to the crew and, as a consequence, the departure of key employees. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Moscow, the small stream of money from the East dried up. The ship deteriorated more and more month by month.
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The condition of the hull was influenced by the place where it moored – says Robert Smagoń of POLSail (owner of, among others, the wooden boat Baltic Star), whom we asked for a comment. – Wooden vessels must be kept in salt water. Fresh water means death for them in the long run. The Earl of Pembroke was morred on the canal in Den Heder, so it was only a matter of time before she was degraded. Already in the summer, when I had the opportunity to see the ship, her condition did not give much hope – he explains.
And so it happened indeed. In late autumn 2022, the sentence on the sailing ship was signed. On December 2, a set consisting of a tugboat and a pusher escorted the once proud aristocrat to the shipyard of her last service. In Kampen, on the site of the Hoeben company, demolition excavators were already waiting for the ship. Thus ended the story of the Earl of Pembroke.
It is worth recalling that the vessel was built in 1945 in Pukavik, Sweden as a schooner for transporting timber between Baltic ports. She was baptized with the name „Orion”. 4 years later the ship changed hands, name („Tullan”) and flag (Denmark). After decades of service as a motor vessel, in 1974 she was laid up in a Danish port of Thisted. It was there that a bunch of Britons spotted her, and in 1980 brought her to the UK to be rebuilt into a barque – a repelica of the Endeavor, the famous ship of James Cook. From the beginning, the purpose of the ship, which was renamed the Earl of Pembroke (that was the original name of the 18th-century Endeavor), was to play in films and participate in sailing festivals. It worked for a long time. Finally, in 2011, the vessel docked for over two years in the port of Charleston in Cornwall. After the change of owners, she returned to regular sailing, but the funds and enthusiasm were enough for several months only. And so the tall ship went into Russian hands. How it ended, we know.
This is another tall ship that sailed to Hilo. In November we informed about the passing of the German gaff cutter Norden . Let’s hope it’s not the beginning of a sad sailing streak.