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| Riversdale (January 25, 2009) |
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 The classic clipper bow of the Riversdale is one of the great sights at Royston.Riversdale was a three-masted steel ship more than 275 feet long. She was built in Scotland in 1894. For 20 years the square-rigger sailed under the British flag. She called at India, Germany, the U.S. west coast, Singapore, Australia, Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. Riversdale went wherever there were bulk cargoes such as coal, coke, lumber, wheat, and nitrates. A Hamburg firm bought the ship around 1909. Renamed Harvestehude, she plied the world. When World War I broke out, Harvestehude was unloading coke at a copper smelter in Santa Rosalia, Mexico. She was interned there and never sailed under canvas again. She ended up in Vancouver in 1924. Her old name was restored but now she was just a barge. Riversdale hauled copper ore from Anyox, British Columbia, for a decade. Then she carried wood chips and logs. She was sold again in the late 1950s. As Crown Zellerbach No. 3, she shuttled to and from Ocean Falls with hog fuel and logs. Crown Zellerbach No. 3 was retired in 1961 and put into the Royston breakwater. Most of her hull soon collapsed. Yet today her bow and bowsprit still stand tall, a reminder of the Cape Horn windjammers of old. Resources Underwater Archaeological Society of British Columbia |
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