LOUISE

[shipstamps]

Built as a wooden barque by Charles Bliss & Co, Freeport, Maine, for G. & C. Bliss, Freeport.
Launched under the name JENNIE S BARKER.
Tonnage 1.065 gross, 1.015 net, dim. 173.2 x 34.6 x 23.0ft.
Two decks.
October 1869 completed. Copper sheathed.

Used as cargo vessel.
Circa 1879 sold via a German company at Hamburg, renamed LOUISE, to Ole Nielsen Gogstad, junior, Sandefjord, Norway, in 1880. Sold for N. Kr. 90.000 not renamed.
Used in the timber trade in the Baltic.
1904 Sold to Cia Argentina de Pesca S.A. Under Argentinean flag
23 July 1904 she sailed from Sandefjord for Buenos Aires under command of Capt. Thorvald Christian Thorsen, and 17 crew and some twenty others, with the complete factory plant on board, provisions for 18 to 20 months, material and equipment and 756 tons coal, 30 harpoons, 300 grenades and 1.983 empty barrels. Two wooden prefabricated houses one to house the factory the other to accommodate the workers.
After arrival at Buenos Aires, the LOUISE sailed southwards, mostly towed by the FORTUNA to speed up the voyage. At that time the LOUISE had a crew of 15 and 65 other men on board.
16 November 1904 both ships arrived safely at the anchorage of Grytviken.
After arrival at Grytviken the LOUISE was used as accommodation ship until the accommodation barrack had been built.
At that time there was not a quay and the material on board the LOUISE had to be ferried on shore with improved rafts, till a jetty was built.

27 November 1904 the first whale a humpback whale was harpooned by the FORTUNA and brought alongside the LOUISE.

Thereafter she was used as a coal hulk until the 1920s. When the last catcher was refitted from coal to oil she was useless. She subsequently, ran or was driven aground outside off the whaling station on the south side of King Edward Cove.
December 1987 was she accidentally burnt to the waterline, when during a firing practice by British Army personnel; a tracer round ricocheted off a rock and entered the hull. The men tried to extinguish the fire but it flared up again.

Till today she is in the same position.
Falkland Islands Dependencies 1980 9p sg 82a, scott 1L46
South Georgia and Sandwich Islands 1990 62p sg 200, scott 148.

Source: Pesca, A History of the Pioneer Modern Whaling Company in the Antarctic. Watercraft Philately Vol. 38 page 2

[D. v. Nieuwenhuijzen]

Falkland Islands Dependencies 1980, 9 p.