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Rathfern - a general history

Completed September 1863; Yard No. 52; Official No. 47184; Code Letters VMNL.

Advertised as a 'fine clipper ship'

Owners: Pirrie & Co, Belfast: 1867 Chartered to William Pirrie, Sinclair & Co (Liverpool) Belfast.

Masters: 1864-66 Watson; 1867-75 J Mitchell.

Voyages: 26 April 1867 bound for Cork; March 1870 arrived Wellington, New Zealand from Liverpool; 21 August 1871 arrived Liverpool from Rangoon; 5 September 1873 arrived Gravesend from Rangoon.

The Rathfern sailed from Bassein on 29 May 1875 bound for Queenstown with a cargo of 1,727 tons of bagged rice, one passenger & a crew of 27 & disappeared. At the Court of Inquiry the owner stated that the vessel had carried rice on three previous voyages with no problems & he thought that on this occasion she had been lost through being dis-masted in a hurricane off the Cape. She was posted as missing by Lloyds’ on 6 January 1876.

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