δ ERIC TUFNELL (BRITISH, 1888-1978)

The Clipper 'Rodney'

Signed 'E Tufnell' (lower right) and inscribed 'Rodney' (lower left)

Watercolour

14½ x 20¾in. (37 x 52.5cm.)

Built for Devitt & Moore in 1874 by W. Pile as a full rigged ship for the Australian immigrant trade, Rodney could carry 60 first class and about 500 steerage passengers. In November 1895, while on passage to Sydney in bad weather, she lost her lion figurehead in the Channel which washed ashore six months later in Whitsand Bay. Sold in 1897 to Boissière of Nantes and renamed Gipsy, she was re-rigged as a barque for the nitrate trade for South America. On December 7th, 1901 on voyage from Iquique to Falmouth with a cargo of nitrate, she was wrecked at Downderry, Cornwall. Being a hazard to navigation, she was blown up and her remains are still there at seven metres depth.