File:The Columbus, Captn. Wm McKellar, was built at Quebec 1824 by Charles Wood, of Port Glasgow, (gives dimensions and with plan of hull) RMG PY0540.tiff

English: The Columbus, Captn. Wm McKellar, was built at Quebec 1824 by Charles Wood, of Port Glasgow, (gives dimensions and with plan of hull)

Four-masted barque built by Charles Wood of Port Glasgow at Anse-du-Fort, Isle of Orleans, Quebec, and launched on 28 July 1824. Her dimensions were 301 ft x 50 ft 6ins x 22 ft 5 in, 3690 tons. She was flat-bottomed, with straight sides and made of timbers as nearly square as possible, with the intention of carrying a cargo of timber over the Atlantic and then herself being taken apart and sold as part of it. On 5 September she sailed under Capt William Mckellar with 6300 tons of timber for London. She grounded at Bersimis on the St Lawrence on the 9th but got off and continued on the 12th. On 29 October she was off the Scillies and on 1 November arrived in the Downs in a leaking condition. With the help of pilots and steam tugs she was brought as far as Blackwall Reach for unloading but her owners did not dismantle her as planned. Instead, against Wood's advice, they sent her back to St John's, New Brunswick, for another cargo and she was wrecked outward-bound in the English Channel on 17 May 1825. British reports of her appear in Lloyd's List, 2 November 1824 and 'The Times', 13 October, 9 November 1824 and 31 May 1825. Other references are in Charles Wood's own book, 'Ballast' (Glasgow 1836), F.W. Wallace, 'Wooden Ships and Iron Men' ( London 1924/1973) and articles on the timber trade by D. M. Williams in 'The Mariner's Mirror', vol.54 (1968), and E. R. Marcil in 'The American Neptune', vol. 48 (1988). PAF7708, another print of 1824, calls her the 'great American raft'. PAH0540 includes a plan. PAD6407 shows her before launch with 14 ft of draught marks on her sternpost. PAD7904, in Henry Moses 'Sketches of Shipping' series, shows her as background to a view of cutters in Blackwall Reach.

The image is inscribed: "The Columbus, Captn Wm McKellar, was built at Quebec in 1824 by Charles Wood of Port Glasgow and launched with about 4,000 tons of her cargo on board; the dimensions of this immense Ship, which was only nine months on the Stocks, are as follows... and measures 3800 Regiser Tons. She is more than a third longer than the Prince Regent, the largest ship in the British Navy, which measures 2620 tons and was several years upon the Stocks."

This hand coloured prints shows 'Columbus' under full sail in starboard broadside view.