Derek George Montague Gardner (British, 1914-2007) 'The Eddystone light a beam. The tea-clipper Lahloo coming up Channel. 9th October 1869'
'The tea-clipper Lahloo was built by Robert Steele &Co. and sent afloat from their yard on the Clyde at Greenock in 1867. This firm, which began in the 1970s as a builder of fishing boats, was established by the mid years of the nineteenth century as one of the leading shipbuilders in the Kingdom. Among the graceful tea-clippers built by Steele were Kate Carnie (1855), Falcon (1859), Serica (1863), Ariel (1865), Sir Lancelot (1865), Titania (1866) and then in 1867 he launched the Lahloo for Alexande Rodger of Glssgow who owned the famous Taeping which Steele had built in 1863.
The ship was of composite construction and like many of the tea ships heavily sparred and of superb workmanship throughout. She came out with the deep topsails but it appears these were soon replaced by doubles and this is how I have shown her when coming up Channel in 1869 off the Eddystone, then 100 days out from Foochow bound for London.
As with many of the hard-driven ships of that day the Lahloo's life was a short one. She was wrecked in the eastern seas on one of the Sunda Islands when on her way from Shanghai with tea in 1872.'
£12,000 - £18,000