shipstamps.co.uk

Built as a wooden schooner in 1852 by the yard of W.F.Moore, Plymouth, Devon (builders Cert. 11 September 1852) first owners not known.
Tonnage 65 grt, dim. 71 x 16ft.

From the Liverpool Museum I got that she have, that the MARIA was transferred on 31st July 1856, to Liverpool and that the vessel was previously registered at London No 444 1st November 1855.
Owner given on the Liverpool registration is Samuel Greg Rathbone of Liverpool, Merchant.
1863 John Holt was listed as a change of Master i.e. captain.

1868 Bought by John Holt & Company, Liverpool, for £650.
This purchase enabled the Holt Company to expand out of Fernando Po (now named Bioko and part of Equatorial Guinea.), and have trading facilities elsewhere.
Her first passage from the U.K to west coast of Africa took 46 days.
MARIA remained an important part of the company’s business along the African coast until she was sold in 1876 for £600.

Additional notes on the registry papers:
Used as a hulk in Western Africa, and sunk in December 1884.
Certificate of Registry supposed lost.
Registry closed 19 May 1885.

Sierra Leone 1980 6c sg640, scott?

Source: Watercraft Philately. Info received from Mr Groves and Liverpool Museum.

Is this the same vessel?


THE CRUISE ON THE YACHT MARIA IN 1854
"While selecting before a map a pleasant cruise for the past summer, our eyes fell on the Feroe Islands; and it occurred to us, that they might be as well worth seeing as many more frequented places. In the absence of a better source of information, we referred to a very old edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" which happened to be in the, library.
There we read "They are a cluster of little islands lying in the Northern Ocean. They belong to Denmark. There are seventeen which are habitable, each of which is a lofty mountain rising out of the sea, divided from the others by deep and rapid currents. Some of them are deep and indented with secure harbours, Providence seeming to have favoured mankind with the safest retreats in the most boisterous seas. All are very steep, and most of them faced with tremendous precipices."
The account went on to represent the surrounding seas as rilled with whirlpools, and the air with whirlwinds, called by the Danes,Oes; which latter, it said, "catch up a vast quantity of water, so as to leave a temporary chasm on the spot on which they fall, and carry away with them to an amazing sitance any fishes which may happen to be within reach of their fury. Thus great shoals of herrings have been found on the tops of the highest mountains."
This account, though evidently too imaginative to be implicitly relied upon, was so curious, that we determined to learn more about the Islands, and with some difficulty procured two other works on the subject, neither of them very recent.
They did not contain quite such marvellous descriptions as the one quoted, but they served fully to convince us that this "Friesland" of the ancient Venetians did not merit the complete neglect in which it seemed left by modern travellers, and was worth the attention of any one who felt an interest in seeing either grand scenery, or a remarkably fine race of men, living in strange seclusion from the rest of the world.
We, accordingly, chose the Feroes as the destination of our cruise; and our next step was to endeavour to find some person who had been there, and could furnish us with later information than was contained in any of the written accounts. The search for such an individual, however, proved wholly unsuccessful. No one seemed to know anything, or care at all about them; and neither in the great
yachting nor commercial ports could we find anybody who had done more than pass the Islands in the distance. The cause of the Feroese being thus left out of the intercourse of nations will appear clearly enough hereafter."
Those were the words of the two English gentlemen Samuel Rathbone and E. H. Greig, in the introduction to the narrative of their cruise on the yacht "Maria" among the Faroe Islands in the summer of 1854.
The narrative is a humorous and ironic description of the meeting between the curious Victorian gentlemen and an outdated culture - but also an accurate observation of the problems of a nation, which was about to step into a staggering development from the Middle Age way of thinking, into a modern society.
The narrative contains some wonderful lithographs, which are shown on the stamp sheet.
The full version of the narrative is displayed on our new theme site: http://www.faroephilately.fo

From Faroe Islands Philatelic leaflet issued with stamps.

I have not any info on the schooner yacht MARIA as given in the URL below, but I believe she is not the same vessel,
In the URL is given that she is 83 ton with a length of 68 ft, crew 9.
The URL given by John does not work on mine computer.

http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Reise_mit ... iginaltext

Capt Palmhof is probably correct but I notice that in the first write up it says that the owner was Samuel Greg Rathbone.
In the second write up it say that the yacht was sailed by Samuel Rathbone and E.H. Greig.
The similarity of the names might be more than a coincidence.