Polly Woodside
Restored eighteen-eighties iron barque that rounded Cape Horn sixteen times, moored in a dry dock.
Location
About this audio guide
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.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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