City of Adelaide stalls

Plans to return the historic City of Adelaide clipper ship to South Australia are now in limbo as the new Coalition government assesses the ship’s heritage values.

The City of Adelaide Preservation Trust was promised $850,000 from the Labor government more than a year ago to cover the cost of its journey from the UK to Adelaide.

But the cheque was not signed before the government went into caretaker mode ahead of the September 7 election and the Trust is yet to hear whether the Coalition will honour the commitment.

However, trust director Peter Christopher said he was “confident” the Coalition would honour Labor’s commitment but he was unable to book the heavy-lift ship which will carry the clipper to Adelaide until the Coalition committed.

The ship has arrived in Chatham Docks, England, after travelling from its resting place for the past 20 years on the River Irvine in Ayrshire (ammended based on reader comment below).

It will now be prepared for a formal celebration attended by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh alongside the historic clipper Cutty Sark, on the River Thames on October 18.

More than $1.2 million of British taxpayers’ money has been put towards the City of Adelaide’s 1600km journey to Port Adelaide.

The ship was built in 1864 to carry passengers and cargo to Adelaide. It is expected to arrive in Port Adelaide early next year.

The clipper City of Adelaide was renamed HMS Carrick when purchased by the Royal Navy in 1923. This was to avoid confusion with the new cruiser HMAS Adelaide that had recently been commissioned in the Royal Australian Navy. In 2001, the clipper's name reverted to City of Adelaide after a conference convened by HRH Duke of Edinburgh to discuss the future of the historic ship. A formal renaming ceremony will be held on October 18.

The City of Adelaide clipper weighs over 450 tonnes. In her sailing days she would have weighed 1500 tonnes. In its current state (hull only), the clipper is 54 metres long. Originally -- with jib-boom -- she was 74 metres.

The City of Adelaide was built in 1864, five years before the Cutty Sark. She is one of only four surviving sailing ships to have taken emigrants from the British Isles to any destination in the world, and the last survivor of the timber trade between North America and the United Kingdom. She is the world’s fifth oldest surviving merchant ship, and was designed and built specifically to serve the colony of South Australia.

The City of Adelaide is famous for being specially designed as a passenger ship. Over a quarter of a century the City of Adelaide carried thousands of English, Scottish, Cornish, German, Danish, Irish and other migrants to South Australia. Today, the descendants of her passengers can be found throughout Australia.