Pier 7 in Honolulu harbor is home to a very old ship with a rather odd name — the 145-year-old Falls of Clyde.

It's also an historical marvel. The Falls of Clyde the only surviving iron-hulled, four-masted full-rigged ship in the world. It was included in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, and designated a national historic landmark in 1989.

It's also seen much better days. An assessment of the vessel earlier this year described it as "a partially flooded, heavily corroded vessel with structural failure and a substantial loss of historical and architectural integrity." 

And that's created a problem for the Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT). 

The agency wants to redevelop Pier 7 which has been vacant and condemned for the past 14 years, since the departure of the Hawaii Maritime Center. But before it can do this it must relocate the historic Falls of Clyde. And this is proving to be no easy task.

A local group, The Friends of Falls of Clyde, bought the ship from the Bishop Museum in 2008 for $1 to preserve and restore it, but after dealing with HDOT Harbors Division for past 8 years, its clear the ship will have to be removed from harbor.

“We are supportive of any plan that will remove her but still preserve here,” says Bruce McEwan, President of Friends of Falls of Clyde.

In order to remove the vessel and issue a Request for Proposal for its removal from the harbor, HDOT is completing the planning and entitlement process, including seeking the delisting of the vessel from the Hawaii Register of Historic Places.

HDOT Director Ed Sniffen says the agency has an obligation to ensure public resources, including commercial harbors and related infrastructure, are being managed effectively. HDOT currently pays a contractor to regularly monitor water levels and pump water from its hull. Without this intervention, the ship would likely sink, list, or damage surrounding facilities.

“The ship has been a concern for the harbor from a safety and operational standpoint for the past 10 years,” says Sniffen. “Every year during hurricane season, we brace for the potential for the ship to sink in place or list and impact the infrastructure in the area or even turn and affect the harbor lanes in the area. And being a state that is separated from land, we absolutely depend on our harbors for our goods, and we cannot take the risk of this shipping affecting that.”

The Falls of Clyde launched in 1978 from Glasgow, Scotland and spent the first two decades criss-crossing the globe as a freight hauler. In the late 1890s, it was purchased by Captain William Matson who brought it to Hawaii. For much of the remainder of it's career, the ship was part of the transpacific sugar trade travelling primarily between Hawaii and the California. 

Image courtesy Hawaii Maritime Center

The ship was converted to an oil tanker in 1907. Falls of Clyde was demasted in 1922 and spent the next few decades as a floating petroleum depot in Ketchikan, Alaska. It was set to be scuttled but a Hawaii residents raised money to bring it back to Honolulu in 1963. 

Falls of Clyde was restored and opened to the public in 1971. A decade later it was moved to Pier 7 as part of  the Hawaii Maritime Center. But the Maritime Center closed in 2009 and the Falls of Clyde has fallen further into disrepair.

McEwan says there is currently a group in Scotland called Falls of Clyde International Inc. that is trying to move the ship to Scotland and restore it. That group's has been working with HDOT but has thus far been unsuccessful in finding a solution.

HDOT officials want to replace the maritime center museum with something similar, says Dre Kalili deputy director of Harbors, adding that HDOT is currently in the middle of a public auction process to find a tenant / developer to take on the project. All bids are due this month and they are looking to make an award by September.

"We understand that some members of the public will be disappointed by the vessel’s removal from Honolulu Harbor," the agency said in a statement. "But we remain open to supporting the ship’s owner, Friends of Falls of Clyde, partnering with an entity that can both remove and preserve the property."