The Demise of the Sailing Ship
Inevitably the rise of steamers would adversely affected the
number of sailing ships that would call at Aden. By
‘sailing ships’ one is excluding the local sailing craft
such as dhows. From 161 sailing ships calling in the
financial year 1857-58, it took only 13 years to reduce
this total by more than half (to 78) and in another 13
years (1883-84) the sailing ship had virtually
disappeared from Aden waters, with only six calling.
1891-92 was the first year when none called. The
following year three sailing ships called but there
followed three more blank years, when records finish.
By the 1870s the great
majority of sailing ships were colliers. In 1878-79 some
11 of the sailing ships were troop transports, carrying
troops from India to Abyssinia. Between 1870 and 1881
the average size of vessel was about 900 tons, with the
troop transports being over 1,500 tons. In 1872-73 some
58 out of 71 ships were British.
Over the years, perhaps
somewhat surprisingly, American ships from the eastern
seaboard of the States were present in reasonable
numbers. For example of the 34 ships that called in the
three years 1881-182 to 1883-1884, eight were American.
By 1880 most of the
colliers were steamers. The cargoes carried by the 19
ships that called in 1880-81 were:
Six rice, five cotton
goods, only four coal, and one each carried timber (from
Penang), general cargo, cargo unknown calling for a
clean bill of health and one ‘returned empty from sea’,
Aden presumably being her home port.
|
