Gold was discovered in California in 1848 and in Australia in 1850; there was no Panama Canal yet, all ships making the journey from the East coast of North America had to go round Cape Horn.  Unscrupulous ship-owners cashing in on the ‘boom’ sent any ship, sometimes grossly overloaded with emigrants and/ or cargoes of merchandise, likely to survive the hazardous trip.

The guano trade was in full swing as farmers in Europe discovered the benefit of nitrates on their land. This was difficult and unstable to transport as was copper ore, another common cargo on the return journey. Coal was very often a cargo outwards from Britain and Europe and this frequently went on fire. The main cause of loss and wrecking to shipping though was certainly the battering they got as they tried to round Cape Horn. How many lives were lost as ships sank without trace is not known. Many gave up and struggled back to the Falklands leaking and broken, only to founder on reefs and rocks on the jagged coastline. Charts were poor and few, and masters and ships had their limitations.  Many, however did make it to the new town of Stanley and it became an important staging post for supplies, repair or shelter. The long voyage to Australia particularly needed a stop for vegetables and fresh food.

Wages and merchants’ prices reached such astronomic proportions for those days that ship-owners instructed Captains to go there only when their situation was desperate. As a ship repair port Stanley could take advantage of their misfortune, but only at best patch them up, there was no dry dock, materials were imported and expensive and labour short. Carpenters and blacksmiths could earn 12 shillings a day, all wages were high, even unskilled men demanded 5 shillings a day. In the 1891 Colonial report the acting Colonial Secretarty wrote 'Nine ships put into Stanley Harbour in distress, less than the usual number. It is to be feared that the delays and high charges incident to the repair of vessels here have rendered the port a place to be avoided if possible.' A great many ships were condemned as unseaworthy and their hulks sold. The ship repair trade began to decline in the 1870’s, when the sale of hulks collapsed but ship repairing lasted until the 1890’s, as long in fact as the sailing ships. Steamers were not so prone to distress and the last sailing vessel to struggle to the Falklands was the Fennia.

Sources include: Colonial Reports. Condemned at Stanley- John Smith 1969 Wikipedia website,www.boatregister, The Falkland Islands Journal, The Falkland Islands- Ian J Strange, Jane Cameron nationalarchives/shipping casualties wrecks

Photographic credits: Robert Maddocks, Jean Sinclair

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