As promised to various people who commented about the photo of the tall ship in Ramsgate Harbour, a detailed answer.
I think, Eolus, Black Opal, Eolus and Black Pearl are all of the names that ship went under in the right order.
She had been Eolus until she was bought by an Australian opal mining company
I had had a difficult education which I was in the process of changing, I was at Lord Mayor Treloar College for the disabled which had very long vacations and no half term breaks. As a teenager the Black opal had various attractions and the opportunity to learn new skills, I already had a sailing dingy and was keen to improve my sailing and rigging skill, working with Wally the rigger meant I learnt a bit about rigging.
Working on removing the old Bolinder engine was helpful with my skill as a sort of mechanic.
I have pasted below the previous blog posts I have written about this with comments from other people involved.
She had been Eolus until she was bought by an Australian opal mining company
I had had a difficult education which I was in the process of changing, I was at Lord Mayor Treloar College for the disabled which had very long vacations and no half term breaks. As a teenager the Black opal had various attractions and the opportunity to learn new skills, I already had a sailing dingy and was keen to improve my sailing and rigging skill, working with Wally the rigger meant I learnt a bit about rigging.
Working on removing the old Bolinder engine was helpful with my skill as a sort of mechanic.
I have pasted below the previous blog posts I have written about this with comments from other people involved.
I worked on her from around when she arrived in Ramsgate which I think was August 1969, during my vacations also during the very cold winter 69/70 and the Easter vacation 70 I think towards the end of the Easter vac I got too involved in being a mechanic of sorts.
This is a long time ago so I may have the dates a bit wrong I was having issues with my alma mater at the time which Theresa May has announced today will be the subject of a public enquiry. So my mind was much more focused on becoming a survivor than recording diversions.
At the time of this photograph the mizzen mast (one at the back) hadn’t been stepped (inserted) because the old engine, a Bolinder semi diesel which was located under two floors of accommodation astern (at the back
My guess is that this picture on an unknown slipway is of the sale survey probably 1968 or more likely 1969
Hello Michael
After finding some of my old files it revived my interest to discover the fate of the Black Opal.
Searching, I found your 2007 article on the Black Opal and discovered there that it is now a restaurant in Malta and renamed Black Pearl, it was great to know the vessel is still in existence, even in the current format.
The crews stories were an interesting account of some of the events that had befallen the vessel.
I may be able to add a little to the story as I found no reference to the person who founded the project, Robert Bruderer.
I met Robert in May 1968 at his tourist attraction the ‘Opal Mine’ on the Gold Coast, Queensland, he had dug the mine himself, no opals in it, only seeded, it was dug by hand in the hill, which indicated his determination to succeed.
He sold me on his dream concept of a barquentine to showcase his opals and which then later was to be a cruise vessel off the Queensland coast, I was to be a part of the venture as the vessels marine engineer.
I became one of the original shareholders, but declined to join the vessel at Ramsgate after opting for a career at sea and a family.
I lost contact with Robert and the company after hearing much of the financial problems. Regrettably I didn’t stay in touch at the time.
Robert set off from Australia with Captain Gordon Keeble in July 1969 in search of his ideal vessel, they found the Eolus then commenced the fit out for conversion to the Black Opal at Ramsgate.
A letter from Robert in May 1970 he referred to it as costing $120,000 and being his “F111” but worth every penny of it.
Another article that came to light in my search was that Robert Bruderer bought the Clipper Patricia the mid 70’s to convert for cruising off Australia
While I doubt that is correct, I have no knowledge as to Robert’s involvement with the Black Opal after May 1970.
Possible he may have left the project for some reason and tried again elsewhere on his own, he was very determined to succeed in his dream of a cruising vessel.
I’ve attached a couple of b&w photo’s Robert sent me and the article regarding the Clipper Patricia.
This may be of interest to you, even after so many years
Best regards
Ron
Newcastle
Australia
The other photos above cam with this email I got in 2012 ad didn't publish at the time as I thought the intention was to publish them on a website that hasn't appeared yet.
Dear Micheal,
Just a few photos of eolus/black opal ,am working on restoring and
digitising my library , should have about a hundred presentable images
( out of about a thousand } when ready . Are you the man in the left
back in the engine room ?.
Kind regards
Maurice
Obviously there are bits of conflicting information as it was quite a long time ago.
Thanks for the post and further info and photos, I can now add bit more after further digging.
The slipway was in Svendborg, Denmark, I can confirm the date as 20th September 1969, and most likely the Frederiks northern yard as it still had slipways in 69. The yard closed in 2011.
The Eulos' homeport was registered as Svendborg, so this is the most likely place of purchase as a Danish newspaper article also reports "Svendborg-Skonnert solgt til Australien", Robert Bruderer. Am unable to read the article.
In the deck photo under slipway, Robert is the 2nd from the right.
Looking forward to seeing a website and Maurice's library when completed.
Best regards
Ron
Geoffrey Conner.
Geoffrey Conner
She rests in Malta now as a fish restaurant. This information here is mind blowing as we had so many other 'facts' wrong. We thought she was built in 1909 in Pukavik and even owned by famous Errol Flynn...
Contact me for images etc on scicluna3@gmail.com
The Pearl is my second home nowadays and the love of my life. I'd be glad to be in touch with anyone who knew it from before, as i was under the impression that she was internationally forgotten.
Simon
Scicluna
At that time she belonged to a frenchman who had bought her near derelict in Singapore; he planned to bring her back to the Med and refit her for service with Club Mediterranee. I believe it was he who re-named her Black Pearl.
En Route through the Red Sea there was an engine room fire. Her distress call was responded to by an oil rig supply vessel under command of an american - Capt. Reid. Reid's crew got the fire under control and took her in tow but Reid was ordered to take off the crew and cut Black Pearl adrift as his employers were not interested in the salvage nor the expense of towing her to a safe port. Reid refused and towed her into Port Tewfik. En route he was fired by his employers; on arrival in Tewfik he was met by the owner who fired the original captain and offered him the master's position.
At that time I was based in Malta working as a free-lance rigger on various yachts, including Reid's own ketch; Reid asked me to fly to Egypt and put the rig, which was in dreadful condition, into a fit state for the passage on to Malta.
..... Continued below ...
However beautiful Eolus may have been on departure from Ramsgate Black Pearl was, by now, in an appalling state. Reid was a very experienced tug master, an excellent seaman, but with no knowledge of sailing ships. He was well taken up with the romance of being master of a square rigger but lacked the specialised knowledge to realise what a sorry ship he had under his command. After the departure of her original captain she had been run by enthusiastic amateurs who lacked the skills - and wherewithal - to keep her in good shape. When I joined Black Pearl her crew was an enthusiastic and varied bunch picked up along the way, under two mates, Doug and Dennis, who had been amongst the original paying passengers on her departure from UK. The Italian chief engineer had joined in Djibouti. He was looking for passage back to Italy having served 30 years in an Ethiopian jail for the murder of his wife and her lover. He was a great engineer, but with no experience at sea, and his habit of throwing his chain smoked cigarette ends into the bilge under the main engine resulted in the serious pump failure that nearly resulted in our sinking!
The accommodation was foul with cockroaches - big Bombay runners. We learnt to sleep in shoes - at night they would nibble the hard skin on the soles of our feet, waking us up as they reached the quick, making walking an agony, especially on salt wet decks!
There was little that could be done with the rig - she was all in natural fibres - rigging and sails - and was all pretty rotten. We spent 2 months in Tewfik getting her sufficiently ship shape for onward passage but our choice of materials was limited by what the local ship chandler could supply - our decks were re-caulked and payed with hard pitch that cracked and leaked as she worked - and she worked very hard in a seaway being badly hogged and twisted.
Our passage through Suez is a story in itself. We couldn't motor above 5 knots and the convoys moved at 8, so we were left behind under the control of a very irate pilot. The canal was not long re-opened and good pilots in short supply; ours had been a Cairo taxi driver a few weeks previously! Don Reid ordered him off the bridge and we continued to the Bitter Lakes on our own.
Passage on to Malta was pretty grim. It was already winter in the Med. We couldn't sail and could only motor very slowly, especially against head winds. I remember spending a couple of days staring at the same headland on the south of Crete - all up and down and no along!
As the weather deteriorated the worm ridden, bent and twisted old hull - and decks - worked and leaked and in came the water. One by one our pumps failed, for the most part clogged with Marlboro' filters. Our petrol driven portable fire pump - a 'gift' from Reid's previous employers was our last resort, but the petrol we'd bought in Egypt was filthy and full of water. Our last night out the weather deteriorated further and we arrived in Malta close to sinking. Water was well over the sole boards in the main accommodation and the fire brigade was aboard and pumping before Customs and Immigration. Next day, still sinking, we hauled her at Bezzina's floating dock and I very gladly signed off.
Black Pearl was a romantic notion but severely flawed.
She was originally rigged as a 2 masted schooner, a suitable rig for a Baltic Trader. She was too long and narrow to carry a square rig and this was probably the main cause of her twisting. Re-rigging as a barquentine, with 3 masts, meant none of her sticks was stepped or stayed as it should have been - indeed her masts were stepped in 50 gallon oil drums filled with cement and bolted to the keel - this probably contributed to her hogging.
..... Continued below ...
The original slow revving Bolinder main engine had been replaced with a modern high revving Paxman diesel but this was linked to the existing stern gear - a massive two bladed controllable pitch propeller designed for low revs and coarse pitch and unable to be driven at the higher speed of the Paxman. If this weren't bad enough, when the propeller was dismantled for service in Singapore it was reassembled with the blades on back to front, so that when going ahead the intended leading edge was trailing. This led to massive vibration at more than idle revs, the reason we couldn't motor more than 5 knots.
The owner ran out of money shortly into the Malta refit; crew drifted away as wages went unpaid. Bezzina's patched her up as best they could and moved her to a stern-to mooring at Marsamxett. The mooring was open to the NorthEast and too short for the vessel so that the heavy steel mooring buoy lay close under her stem. During a nor-easterly gale she rode up against the buoy, opened some seams and sank.
My knowledge of her history is sketchy thereon. She was raised and chartered by a film company making the Popeye movie, for which she was moved to Il Prajjet bay - where she sank again; her role in the movie had to be re-scripted to allow for her sunken condition!
Presumably her present owners lifted her once more and brought her back to Ta' Xbiex where she lies safely ashore as a fish restaurant.
In closing - I went to school near Portsmouth in the south of England and remember seeing her anchored in one of the creeks to the north of the island shortly before her departure around the world. I dreamt of going to sea in such a vessel - a dream that sadly came true.
Jeremy Parker
I was lucky to have the means to sign on as a guest crew for the whole trip and travelled all the way to Sydney and then Singapore.
I remember a few of the commenters above such as Ray who with me and others took a trip to Alice Springs while Eolus was in Blackwottle Bay. Ja if I recall was a US southerner and planned to be an attorney. Liz was the nurse and administered the antibiotics when needed, which seemed to be quite often.
The Eolus trip certainly changed my life and a few years later I got my own boat and sailed to the US to a new life...Phil
If you google vk4tpt you should find some contact details of mine.
Would like to hear further from you.
Cheers, Ray
Cheer
Invictaron
I intend going to Europe next year and will be making a stop at MALTA to dine on the grand old lady.
You may not remember me; my name is Michael (Mike) Collyer, I was a Guest Crew member aboard Eolus from Portsmouth to Singapore. I live in Tasmania with my partner Julia Paull,
who joined Eolus in Sydney, going to UK. We both returned to Australia from Singapore when the venture failed.
I've been to Malta to see Eolus(Black Pearl)twice recently. By a stroke of good fortune I met the owner of Black Pearl, who told me the history of her time in Malta.
It is a remarkable story and too long to tell here.
I'd be delighted to hear from you if you are interested.
Regards,
Mike Collyer
The storm gale of force 9 gusting to force 10 just off the east Australian coast was another exciting time.
Back on the the subject of blogging, local history, publishing local books and so on. For some time now I have been thinking that the blog was getting a bit dull and samey, I think the current approach that is evolving, using a mystery picture and then a detailed answer with pictures and text on the theme of local history has livened things up a bit.
We have a strict rule that this doesn't happen until December and all comes down around Twelfth Night
link to the photos of the Christmas book we put out today
next the answer to the question in the post
the tower of the Granville was used for tanks for the water used in the spas when it was an hotel.