Polly Woodside

This guide to Polly Woodside on the Yarra River starts with a rusting hulk sold for one cent in 1968, then rewinds to her 1885 launch in Belfast as a three-masted iron barque named for the shipbuilder's wife, Marian. It follows her cargo runs between Britain and South America, sixteen roundings of Cape Horn, and her slow demotion to a stripped coal bunker once steam made sailing ships obsolete. Look closely at the ironwork along her hull for the scars of that working life.