Lot Essay
Four steamers named Clan Grant have served their time during the one hundred year history of the famous Clan Line, the first of which dated from 1883, the year that the company took their first pilgrims from Bombay to Jeddah for the annual Haj.
Like other Clan Liners before and after her, Clan Grant came from the yards of Alexander Stephen & Sons at Linthouse, Glasgow, although she was not a company order. Laid down in the autumn of 1882 and launched as the Procida on 24th January 1883, she was actually ordered and built for Robert Sloman & Co. of Hamburg but when Sloman rejected her as too expensive, Stephen's sold her to the Clan Line, taking their Clan Macleod of 1871 as part payment. Renamed Clan Grant, she was completed in March 1883 as Clan's largest ship to date and, with a different profile to all her running mates, became instantly recognisable when sighted at sea by other company vessels. Registered in Glasgow, her home port, at 3,545 tons gross (2,783 under deck and 2,306 net), she measured 350½ feet in length with a 41 foot beam and was designed with two full cargo decks. A single-screw iron steamer, she was powered by one of her builder's own compound 2-cylinder 355nhp. engines fired from two double boilers and she had a cruising speed of 10½ knots.
Entering service in the spring of 1883, the company kept her until 1900 when it was decided to replace her with a newer and larger vessel of the same name. Sold to Count Keyserling of St. Petersburg for his Pacific Whaling & Fishery Company based at Vladivostok, she was converted into a whaling mother and supply ship and renamed Michail. Five years later following Keyserling's bankruptcy in 1905, she was sold to the Japanese Department of Agriculture & Commerce who continued to operate her as a whaling supply vessel under the name of Mihairu Maru. Sold, converted into a collier and renamed Miharu Maru in 1914, she changed owners twice more in her life as a collier and was finally broken up, in Japan, in 1929.
Like other Clan Liners before and after her, Clan Grant came from the yards of Alexander Stephen & Sons at Linthouse, Glasgow, although she was not a company order. Laid down in the autumn of 1882 and launched as the Procida on 24th January 1883, she was actually ordered and built for Robert Sloman & Co. of Hamburg but when Sloman rejected her as too expensive, Stephen's sold her to the Clan Line, taking their Clan Macleod of 1871 as part payment. Renamed Clan Grant, she was completed in March 1883 as Clan's largest ship to date and, with a different profile to all her running mates, became instantly recognisable when sighted at sea by other company vessels. Registered in Glasgow, her home port, at 3,545 tons gross (2,783 under deck and 2,306 net), she measured 350½ feet in length with a 41 foot beam and was designed with two full cargo decks. A single-screw iron steamer, she was powered by one of her builder's own compound 2-cylinder 355nhp. engines fired from two double boilers and she had a cruising speed of 10½ knots.
Entering service in the spring of 1883, the company kept her until 1900 when it was decided to replace her with a newer and larger vessel of the same name. Sold to Count Keyserling of St. Petersburg for his Pacific Whaling & Fishery Company based at Vladivostok, she was converted into a whaling mother and supply ship and renamed Michail. Five years later following Keyserling's bankruptcy in 1905, she was sold to the Japanese Department of Agriculture & Commerce who continued to operate her as a whaling supply vessel under the name of Mihairu Maru. Sold, converted into a collier and renamed Miharu Maru in 1914, she changed owners twice more in her life as a collier and was finally broken up, in Japan, in 1929.