Send to Colleague
Printer Friendly Format
Email the Editor
Gone but not forgotten
Monday 1 February 2010
WORD comes from non-governmental organisation Robin des Bois that, after being laid up for several years in Trinidad, the ex-Oiseau des Iles, built by French shipyard Dubigeon in Nantes in 1935, has been demolished.
Known in later years as the Flying Cloud , the 63 m long passengership was the last three-masted ship built in Nantes by shipowner Adolphe Dubigeon.
The Grenadian-flagged vessel had a colourful history. Compagnie Française des Phosphates de l’Océanie used it to transport supplies and workers to the phosphate mines in Tahiti, French Polynesia. Equipped with an auxiliary engine, it sailed in the South Pacific up until the the end of the 1950s.
In 1941, Oiseau des Iles was requisitioned by the Tahiti naval forces, and was not returned to its owner until 1947.
In 1957, it was renamed Tuxtla and headed for the west coast of Mexico. Details of its role are a little murky, but when it was bought by Windjammer Barefoot Cruises, Miami, in 1968 its state had degraded significantly.
After restoration, the newly named Flying Cloud was transformed into a luxury passengership in the Caribbean.
Wear your hat with pride
THOSE of us in Europe and North America who have been struggling with unseasonally cold weather recently can turn a thought to seafarers who battle with the elements regularly.
Seafaring charity the Sailors’ Society wants workers to don their woolly hat at work for its annual Woolly Hat Week campaign, on February 7-13 this year.
Employees can take part in return for a small donation. The money raised will help the charity provide assistance to seafarers, as well as going towards the distribution of woolly hats to seafarers ill-prepared for colder climates.
Sailors’ Society events fundraiser Vicky MacLeod said: “Woolly Hat Week has been so successful in recent years that we receive hats, knitted by volunteers all over the world, throughout the year.
“We welcome woolly hats, but also encourage donations towards transporting the hats to the seafarers who need them most.”
Big on the Big Apple
WATSON, Farley & Williams last week completed 20 years in New York with a typical sense of British wonder at how the enterprise did not come unstuck at the outset.
Chairman Frank Dunne told a well- attended soiree that when WFW set up shop in New York in January 1990, barely eight years after the firm itself came into being, it was one of the first British companies to so venture into the Big Apple.
Doubts existed inside and without whether an essentially British firm could make a decent fist of things “by hiring all these American lawyers”, Dunne deadpanned.
In the event, the latter variety of practitioners has made the New York office the “envy” of the rest of the firm, he said.
“Today, our New York office is a full-fledged business law firm offering the highest quality work comparable to, or exceeding, that of traditional Wall Street law firms,” a company statement added.
Here is to the next 20 years.
