The ship "The Corisande"

 

Given that there was verbal evidence that the original owner had called the building Corisande after a ship, I started to look for clues.

1.

I came across a link on the Internet to a "Corisande" built in Devon that was wrecked off Newfoundland in the 1890's. A man called Bartlett, who later commanded Peary's ship that took him on the expedition to the North Pole, was aboard this Corisande, as a junior officer, the night she was wrecked. However a trawling through Canadian records shows that the ship wrecked off Newfoundland, was unequivocally built in Newfoundland.

 

2

However I then came across a print at the UK maritime museum of a UK built Corisande of the same period, and have now a copy of that print. I am trying to find out if this is the boat that was built in Devon

 

 

This would appear to be the same ship "Yawl Corisande 140 tons 1874"

 

As is this of "Corisande" rounding the mark at the Royal London Y.C. in 1875

 

3.

Then I was contacted by a Canadian, Nicole Befurt, who had a watercolour painting of a Corisande, but with little information apart fromt the fact that it had been in the family since the painting was purchased in around 1935 in Whitehorse, Yukon by Nicole's grandmother, who told her that it had come around "The Horn" from England in 1890.

 

I am no expert, but this looks to fill the description of a barquentine, which could mean it was the ship wrecked of Nova Scotia.

4 . From: "Helene Dobrowolsky" <midnight@yt.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Captain Martin & the Corisande
Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 18:31:19 -0800

I too am interested in the vessel Corisande for different reasons. I am a Yukon historian and my most fascinating recent project has been editing the memoirs of Captain Patrick "Paddy" Martin, born in Grates Cove, Nfld. in 1864. He literally sailed the world before ending up in the Yukon during and after the Klondike gold rush of 1898.

Just after Martin obtained his mate's papers in December 1889, his first assignment as a ship's officer was on the Corisande belonging to Walter, Baines, Graves and Co. of Greenock and captained by Robert Linklator of Glasgow. Uncharacteristically, Martin doesn't say too much about the ship itself, other than its rigging was in rough shape when he came aboard and it was a "fish box", that is freighted salt cod from St. John's to various ports. During Martin's service, the ship freighted cod from St. John's NF first to the Barbadoes, then to Lisbon and Mediterranean ports. Martin served on the vessel for a year before heading to new opportunities sealing on Canada's west coast.

According to the 1886-7 Lloyd's Register of Sailing Vessels, the Corisande was a wooden schooner, built in Dartmouth in 1873 by a firm named Philip and owned by J. Grieve of Greenock. Official no. is 67912, 187 net tons, 104.7' length, 23.9' breadth & 12.9' depth.

5. May 1875 "May 17 The schooner "Corisande" struck a large piece of ice off Cape Race in a dense fog, carrying away part of her stem. (PL). "

6. "The steam barge Lothair and schr. Corisande passed Providence Bay on the 7th. They reached Owen Sound all right where they have laid up for the winter. Manitoulin Expositor, December 27, 1884 "

Return to History Page