Miranda as Albatros
Miranda started her life as a 4 masted motor schooner called 'Albatross'. Steel built in 1942 by Lindholm Shipyard, Gothenburg, Sweden.
The Albatross was built as a cargo-carrying sail-training ship for a private firm. Three Island type with poop, midship structure and forecastle.
To keep crew size down, thus minimizing overhead costs, she was not given a square rig but a schooner rig.
Her original figurehead, an albatross, was lost in a collision with a fishing vessel in 1949. Her masts appeared light in relation to her size because of the absence of spreaders and cross-trees.
During the war she was moored in Gothenburg as a stationary schoolship. In 1947 she was chartered by the Gothenburg Academy of Sciences and on July 4, 1947 began a journey that circled the globe conducting oceanographic research, ending her travels October 3, 1948.
Albatross under full sail
(Photo - Harold Underhill’s Sea Training and Cadet ships) She continued her sail-training duties until 1965. In 1967 she was sold and converted to a cargo vessel and renamed Donna under the Panamanian flag. In 1969 she was again sold and became Dorothea.
In 1970 she was then sold to the British Government and used as the mother ship for the deep sea fishing fleet. Renamed MIRANDA she was based in Hull, East Yorkshire. Albatross - Shadwell Basin London
(Picture © English Heritage No. AA001562) Miranda Ex Albatross from a line drawing kindly loaned by Ron Vinall
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The following was received from Bo Nilsson from Sweden in the guest book (on the old Miranda site) on 21st Feb 2006:
"Sailed on the Albatross in 1957 as an apprentice. We brought sugar from Cuba to the U.S. and fertilizers from the U.S. to Cuba and Mexico.
We were homebound in the same hurricane as Pamir, not too far away from her at about 150 nautical miles. She was very good in a rough sea when rigged as she was built. She made 16 knots in really rough weather. Before we sailed for the West Indies they gave us a stronger engine, the old one was a “washing machine motor” - PUH! Today I´m a retired master mariner, but still remember the good old days onboard the Albatross". Bow of Albatross (Photo - Harold Underhill’s Sea Training and Cadet ships)
The Last Days of Miranda (Albatross)
For many years I wondered what happened to Miranda after she completed her work as a support vessel. I has several emails over the years, one suggested she had been scrapped in the early eighties but nothing really positive. Then, in November 2012, Peter Hartung from Germany contacted me with the story of Miranda’s fate. This is it -
“After being bought by Messrs. Beutelrock of Germany some time before 1994, It was planned that the vessel would be converted into a pleasure vessel for tourist tours. But finally the vessel was scrapped at Riga (Latvia) in 1996. She left Lübeck in tow of the tug STORESUND on 3rd of April in 1996”. So! Now we know! See below for the last known photo in 1994 |