Engineering:Home Castle (1811 ship)

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History
United Kingdom
Name: Home Castle
Namesake: Hume Castle
Launched: 1811,[1] Aberdeen[1]
Fate: Lost 1829
General characteristics
Tons burthen: 311,[2] or 315[1] (bm)
Armament: 8 × 9-pounder carronades

Home Castle was launched in Aberdeen in 1811. From 1813 on she was a whaler in the British northern whale fishery (Greenland and Davis Strait). She was lost in 1829 while whaling in Davis Strait.

Career

Home Castle first appeared in the Register of Shipping (RS) and in Lloyd's Register in 1813.[1][2]

Year Master Owner Trade Source
1813 G.Wallis Boyd & Co. London–Leith
Leith–Davis Strait
RS
1813 G.Wallace C.White & Co. Leith–Davis Strait LR

Home Castle then made 16 annual voyages to the Northern Whale Fishery, being lost on her last. Between 1813 and 1824 she sailed from Bo'ness (Borrowstounness). Then from 1825 to her loss she sailed from Leith.[3] Even when she belonged to Leith, she would go up to Bo'ness to boil her oil there and to overwinter.[4]

The data below came primarily from Coltish:[5]

Year Master Where Whales Tuns whale oil
1814 Wallace Greenland 7 52.5
1815 Wallace Davis Strait 4 27
1816 Wallace Davis Strait 4 30

On her way to Davis Strait in early 1816 Home Castle became leaky and had to put into Burnt Islands, Newfoundland and Labrador to effect repairs.[6]

Year Master Where Whales Tuns whale oil
1817 Wallace Davis Strait 8 61
1818 Robertson Davis Strait 5 34
1819 Wallace Davis Strait 13
1820 Wallace Davis Strait 16 108.5
1821 Wallace Greenland 17 81.5
1822 Wallace Greenland 1 6
1823 Wallace Greenland 18 108.5
1824 Wallace Davis Strait 3
1825 Wallace Davis Strait 1 6.5
1826 Wallace Davis Strait 3 17.5
1827 Stewart (or Stuart) Davis Strait 19 194
1828 Stewart Davis Strait 15 82
1829 Stewart Davis Strait

Fate

Home Castle was wrecked on the coast of the Davis Strait, either while crossing or after having crossed Melville Bay. Ice closed in on her, crushing her on 8 July. She was just behind Eagle, so close that Home Castle's jibboom projected over Eagle's taffrail, but Eagle was unharmed.[7]

Lady Jane rescued two of Home Castle's crew and took them into Newcastle.[8]

Of 88 or 89 ships, only four were lost.

Citations

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 RS (1813), Seq.No.H700.
  2. 2.0 2.1 LR (1813), Supple. pages "H", Seq. No.H26.
  3. Scottish Arctic Voyages: Home Castle.
  4. Martine (1888), p. 99.
  5. Coltish (c. 1842).
  6. "The Marine List". Lloyd's List (5067). 19 April 1816. 
  7. Lubbock (1937), pp. 277–278.
  8. "Shipping Intelligence". The Hull Packet and Humber Mercury (2346). 3 November 1829. 

References