Given as COLUMBIA on this stamp of Tristan da Cunha, not so easy to find out which ship is depict, COLUMBIA is a common name used as ships name, but by comparing photo’s on the net by the stamp I believe the COLUMBIA REDIVIVA is depict.
Navicula gives she is the American ship COLUMBIA built in 1773 in Boston and she was the first American sailing vessel circumnavigation the world, and she was passing Tristan da Cunha on her return voyage from Canton loaded with tea.
Stanley Gibbons gives she was a whaling vessel, but so far I can find she never was used for whaling.
She was built as a wooden 3-masted sailing vessel in 1773 by James Briggs at Hobart Landing on the North River, Scituate, Mass. USA.
Launched under the name COLUMBIA. She was named after one of the three patron saints of Ireland, St. Columb, or St Columbia, a great Irish sailor who founded a monastery on the island of Iona in Scotland in the sixth century A.D.
1787 Rebuilt, and RIDIVIVA added to her name, what means revived, but she is still better known as COLUMBIA.
212 Tons burden, dim. 25.5 x 7.4m.
Armed with 10 guns.
Crew 16-31 men
She was owned by a group of six Boston shipowers, merchants and captains headed by Joseph Barrell. The group had fourteen shares with a total of $50.000.
This group of men saw in the abundance of sea otter pelts in the Pacific Northwest region a way of breaking into the lucrative China market, and the consortium bought the COLUMBIA and the sloop LADY WASHINGTON.
John Kendrick in command of the COLUMBIA, and Robert Gray, a former officer in the Continental navy on the ninety-ton sloop LADY WASHINGTON, which had a crew of 12 and was armed with one gun.
30 September 1787 both vessels departed from Boston heading via the Cape Verde Islands for Cape Horn.
In a gale off Cape Horn in position 58 South on 01 April 1788 both ships lost contact, and the LADY WASHINGTON was the first to arrive at Nootka Sound on 17 September 1788, followed by the COLUMBIA on the 24th September.
Too late in the season to do any trade, both vessels were anchored in a sheltered cove, while the crew lived on shore in log huts.
March 1789 Capt, Gray on board the LADY WASHINGTON sailed in search of skins, while the COLUMBIA stayed behind.
The LADY WASHINGTON made a good trade especially at Queen Charlotte Island.
The two ships sailed together to Clayoquit Sound on Vancouver Island, where the furs on board the LADY WASHINGTON were transferred to the COLUMBIA, also both captains’ swapped commands.
COLUMBIA sailed for Canton, China via the Hawaii Islands, and delivered her cargo of furs in December 1799 to Shaw & Randall in Canton, in exchange she loaded a cargo of tea for the home market.
12 February 1790 she sailed home, via the Cape of Good Hope, making a call at St Helena before heading to Boston, where she arrived on 11 August 1790.
The sea otter pelts had not sold very well at Canton due to glutting of the market with pelts, and for this reason the voyage was made with a loss.
But the consortium decided to try it for a second time, and 28 September the COLUMBIA under command of Captain Gray sailed from Boston and headed for Clayoquit on the West coast of Vancouver Island. She arrived 04 June 1791 at the Nootka Sound and trade till the fall, before she sailed to Clayoquit.
Over the winter she assembled the sloop ADVENTURE, the frames they brought from Boston.
When spring 1792 came the ADVENTURE sailed north in the hunt for skins, the COLUMBIA headed south.
12 May 1792 Gray discovered a wide river, which he named after his ship the Columbia River.
Then the COLUMBIA headed north again in search for the sea otter skins with the ADVENTURE.
The COLUMBIA struck a rock in Milbanke Sound and was almost wrecked.
On the end of the season the ADVENTURE was sold to the Spaniards, on 03 October she sailed for Hawaii and then to China.
08 December COLUMBIA arrived at Macao, then up the Pearl River on 02 February 1793.
That was the last time she was used in the fur trade.
Her movements thereafter are unknown, but her register was closed in October 1801 with the notation of ‘broken up’.
Tristan da Cunha 1983 35p sg343, scott?.
Sierra Leone 2008 1500Le sg?, scott?
Source: Navicula. Ships of the World by Lincoln Paine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Rediviva Some web-sites.