The Clan Macpherson under full sail passing an iceberg

The penultimate sailing vessel ordered for Thomas Dunlop's famous fleet of "Clans" operating at the end of the nineteenth century, Clan MacPherson was built by Russell & Co. at Port Glasgow in 1885. Registered at 1,680 tons gross (1,601 net) and measuring 260½ feet in length with a 38 foot beam, she carried a full-ship rig and, although widely admired as a fine-looking ship, proved steady rather than fast. Nonetheless reliable, she gave her owners almost twenty-five years of profitable service until she was posted missing in 1909 when she disappeared without trace whilst on passage from Newcastle, New South Wales, to Valparaiso.