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| 1. Background | |
| It is important to review the background to the current position. The Scottish Maritime Museum has striven to preserve the City of Adelaide. But the effort cannot continue. In 1993 the Scottish Maritime Museum caused the sunken City of Adelaide, (more commonly known in the Glasgow area as Carrick) to be brought from Glasgow Harbour to Irvine. She was placed on the slipway of the defunct Ayrshire Dockyard Co., on property currently owned by Ayrshire Metal Company. It was planned to restore her and over a period of years the Museum spent over £500,000 in stabilising her and she was opened to the public as part of the Museum’s exhibits. | |
| We will not rehearse in detail the financial history of the Museum in the intervening period except to note that finances became strained with the loss of European Regional Funding assistance and the abolition of Scotland’s Regions. During this period applications to the Heritage Lottery Fund for the development of the Linthouse Building as an exhibition hall were refused. Against this background it was made clear that it would have been pointless to apply to HLF for support for the restoration of City of Adelaide. | |
| From that time all work on her ceased and she deteriorated on the slipway for a decade. Further the original free rental period of the slipway expired and a heavy annual rental to Ayrshire Metals became due, placing further strain on the Museum’s finances. A special conference was held in Glasgow, in 2001 at the instigation of and attended by H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh. It was attended by interests from Sunderland (where she had been built) and national and regional Australian interests (she had traded to Adelaide as a passenger ship and wool clipper). | |
| Both Adelaide and Sunderland made formal outline proposals to obtain the vessel. At that conference the Scottish Maritime Museum demonstrated that they could not afford to restore her and keep her and that there was no enthusiasm from any statuary body or the general public for the vessel to remain in Scotland. Options for alternative ownership were explored and much goodwill was expressed but no firm proposal was made to the Museum by any of the ‘interested’ parties about the future of the vessel. Although the museum has encouraged interested groups, organisations and individuals and provided substantial assistance and information it remains the case that no formal viable proposal has been received after eight years. | |
| In May 2003 an agreement was reached between the Museum and a private individual granting him a period of two years to assess the possibility of restoring the vessel to a seaworthy condition. He paid for two detailed surveys of the vessels condition and for the slipway rental while the surveys were being conducted. The two surveys were and conducted by Tritec Marine Consultants Ltd; a Condition Survey and Limited Close-up Survey. For the Close-up Survey ballast clearance and shot-blasting was undertaken on a section of eight frames of the hull (numbers 46.1/2 to 54.1/2). Tritec also explored with the MCA the conditions likely to be required for the vessel to out in a seagoing condition. As a result of these detailed examinations and deliberations it was concluded that: " the structure condition of the iron frames was so poor that there was nothing left which could be used to support the ship’s hull". In many places the metal frames had become detached from the hull planking and there was doubt that the vessel still retained her as-built shape. " while the condition of some of the lower strakes were quite good the need for their removal for access to the metal structure would cause such disruption that in all probability extensive strake replacement would be necessary ". The keel was still straight and the keel timbers were considered to be in a better state than most "while the restoration of the vessel to a sea-going condition was theoretically possible, it would be very expensive to carry out and little that was authentic of the historical vessel would remain after meeting modern sea-going requirements". Any attempt to remove the vessel in her then condition from the slip without structural strengthening throughout would result in her breaking up. Merely removing her from her present site would involve considerable expense. | |
| At the time of these reports, some five years ago, the cost of sea-going restoration was put in the region of £15–20 million. Restoration as a static museum display was estimated at £10 million. No attempt was made to estimate the expenses of maintaining such a static museum display but it was appreciated that they would be considerable if the vessel was not to deteriorate again. (The pre-fire problems of Cutty Sark have provided a warning of this.) The general rule of thumb developed by the National Historic Ships Committee during the period when the core collection of historic vessels for the U.K. was established was that a sum equivalent to the restoration costs would have to be used for maintenance over a twenty five year period. This rule of thumb mirrors figures used in the commercial ship operation sector. Should the vessel have been restored in Irvine the decision by the Scottish Executive in 1999 to exclude expenditure on the City of Adelaide in any revenue grant to the Scottish Maritime Museum made the retention of her in Irvine an impossibility. | |
| The Museum then decided that it had no other option but to apply for de-construction and have the vessel removed from the slipway. City of Adelaide is unique in that she is a listed building. (Lacking other means, listing as a ‘building’ was the mechanism used to highlight her historic importance and lay down conditions for her preservation.) The process of applying for deconstruction involved seeking approval from North Ayrshire Council, which was subsequently cleared by Historic Scotland on behalf of Scottish Ministers. Permission to de-construct was granted by North Ayrshire conditional upon the development of a plan for her ‘sympathetic’ deconstruction. (A copy of the approval is attached as Appendix I.) North Ayrshire was made aware of the policy of National Historic Ships on de-construction at that time. The Museum had made it clear that it wished to carry out the deconstruction ‘sympathetically’. The Museum was aware of the detail of the working paper on deconstruction that had been adopted as a policy guideline by the National Historic Ships Committee. (The author of this document was Mr. B. Lavery who at the time was also a Trustee of the Museum.) The Museum took the view that it could and would meet the conditions outlined in that paper, as amended and updated in the Historic Ships publication, “Deconstructing Historic Vessels”. This remains the Museum’s policy. | |
| Naturally when the application for de-construction was made public there was a surge of interest in the vessel and a variety of offers ‘to save’ her. Eventually all such good intentions come up against the reality that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to raise funds for preservation or restoration. Each expressed desire to save the ship results in delays to the process of moving to de-construction and costs the Museum considerable liability in slipway rental as each applicant is given the courtesy of time to evaluate their options. For these reasons, after numerous delays, the Museum has adopted a policy of requiring a bond of £1 million to be put up and lodged in an escrow account by applicants as proof that they have the means to stabilise the structure, to have her barged off the Irvine site and to pay the slipway rental while they prepare to move the ship. No further requests for delays ‘to consider options for the ship’s future’ can be entertained unless such a bond is forthcoming. | |
| The Trustees have also made further representations to North Ayrshire Council and to Historic Scotland concerning the future of the vessel. North Ayrshire Council have confirmed that it is not the Council’s policy to use their compulsory purchase powers to acquire the slipway on which the vessels stands (Appendix 4) and Historic Scotland have responded to a formal request to take the vessel into care by saying that they will not take the vessel into care “as they do not possess the necessary facilities to properly conserve this vessel. Moreover we do not have the necessary expertise to adequately care for the City of Adelaide within our Properties in Care division.” In reaching its conclusions as to the options available the Trustees of the Scottish Maritime Museum have had to recognise that all decisions had to be realistic and based on resources available. | |
| The background account above provides detail as to the actions taken over a ten year period. Funding and liabilities associated with the vessel are critical to the decisions taken. The overall funding of the Scottish Maritime Museum is substantially dependent upon revenue grant aid from the Scottish Government. This revenue funding followed the recommendations of a report commissioned by the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Museums Council in 1999. The specific exclusion from all Executive funding was the City of Adelaide. The Scottish Maritime Museum will, therefore, not receive revenue support to work on the vessel, for new sites to retain the vessel or for the future maintenance of the vessel. | |
| The Trustees have considered all of the disposal options using the format adopted by the Advisory Committee for Historic Ships. These are: | |
| Passive Abandonment Demolition by Default. This has never been considered by the Trustees of the Scottish Maritime Museum as an acceptable option because of the liabilities associated with the retention of the vessel on land that they do not own. | |
| Active abandonment Preservation by Sinking. This has never been considered by the Trustees of the Scottish Maritime Museum as the costs associated in re-launching the vessel and towing her to a position where sinking would not cause a hazard to navigation would be of a similar order to re-launching for transportation to another location. The last estimates for re-launching were of an order of £1 million (2001). | |
| Demolition Unconsidered Destruction. This option has never been considered by the Trustees of the Scottish Maritime Museum as acceptable as they recognise the need to gain as much historical information as possible within the constraints imposed by the availability of resources. | |
| Deconstruction Preservation by Sectioning. This option has been considered and found to be impractical for two reasons. First the sectioning and storage of the complete vessel is beyond the resources of the Scottish Maritime Museum. A vessel as large as the City of Adelaide requires a significant amount of space if it is to be stored in sections. Secondly, despite written requests to appropriate organisations, there has been no interest from any organisation in taking the vessel in sections. | |
| Deconstruction Preservation/Replacement by Record. This is the preferred option of the Trustees as it ensures the maximum gain in terms of historical information. Once the final laser survey work has been completed and added to the corpus of knowledge about the vessel’s structure a dismantling plan can be drawn up targeted specifically at those areas of the vessel where it is believed additional information can be obtained. This option still remains subject to the availability of sufficient funding to carry out the work. The solution devised by the Trustees is a compromise between options iv and v. The retention of the bow section and the stern, which are by far the most interesting sections of the vessel, is achievable in terms of the availability of space. Together with the detailed recording the realisation of this proposal is still dependent upon funding. The solution suggested by Historic Ships, which adds the retention of a midships section of the vessel, has been discounted as the amount of space that the additional section would occupy is far greater than the museum has available. However, it is thought feasible to select one complete set of frames and associated beams from the midships section of the vessel and retain them for display at a later date. After the completion of the laser survey and study by the naval architect the set of frames in best condition will be selected. They will have to be cut into manageable sections for transportation and storage until such times as they can be displayed. Should funding be unavailable within an acceptable time frame then the Trustees will abandon the proposal to save the bow and stern and concentrate on the historical record and retention of small examples of the materials used in the construction of the vessel. These items have been identified as:- Two metre section of hull planking from below the water line Two metre section of hull planking from above the water line Two metre section of metal deck beam. Two metre section of iron frame from hold One square metre of stern riveted plate The rudder One rudder support and associated iron work One hold support column One metre section of keel block One original poop deck cabin port with surrounding timber One complete set of midships frames All historical records will be retained as part of the collections of the Scottish Maritime Museum. Sections of the vessel or examples of materials from the vessel will also become items within the collections of the Scottish Maritime Museum. | |
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