The Diolinda began life as the Annie Reece. She was completed as a sailing vessel in 1909 by R. Cock & Sons, Appledore, Devon. Originally owned by A. Reece of Sharpness, Gloucestershire, and was fitted out as a Q-Ship during World War 1.
Diolinda at the Old Long Pier. ( photo from Facebook- unknown contributor)
Technical Details
She was a steel twin screw auxiliary three-masted schooner of Wexford. Built by R. Cock & Sons of Appledore. She measured 99.1 X 22.7 X 9.4 feet. Her gross tonnage was 150 tons, and a net of 88 tons.
Her Official Number was 119636, and Signal Hoist was EIBX. She was on the Lloyd’s Register of shipping in 1935. She was equipped with 2-cyl. 2 S.C.S.A. (12” x 12½”) paraffin engine made by A. & E. Woodward, Keighley. 23 NHP.
The Diolinda was the longest surviving vessel of the four sisters built at Appledore. The others were the Lucy Johns (lost in a storm November 1910), the Doris (wrecked December 1907) and the W.M.L. (lost June 1918).
Diolinda on Slipway at St. Peter Port
Historical Information
Albert Reece was still the owner up until 1915 when it was sold to Onesimus Dorey & Sons, Guernsey.
In 1916 and 1917 the Annie Reece was owned and managed by William Hobbs of Myrtle Street in Appledore.
In 1918 she was transferred to Dorey Shipping Company Ltd., (Onesimus Dorey & Sons, managers), motorised, and renamed DIOLINDA. The Diolinda was then registered in Guernsey.
In 1918 Albert Reece of Sharpness was again the owner of the Annie Reece.
In 1920 she was sold to Albert Bedoura of Mill Hill, Cowes on the Isle of Wight.
By 1923 Michael Cardiff of Wexford was the owner and manager of the Diolinda. She was still registered at Guernsey with 88 registered tons. By 1925 she was re-registered at Wexford.
In 1934, the Diolinda acquired the new signal hoist of EIBX.
The Seychelles Connection
In 1936 the Diolinda was sold to Captain Thomas Voss of Port Victoria in the Seychelles for trading out of the Seychelles. At the end of April 1936, the Diolinda left Liverpool and after 126 days at sea finally reached Table Bay, Cape Town, on 2nd September after experiencing severe damage from gales and storms. This passage is regarded as the longest ever made by a home waters trading schooner. In October 1936 she finally arrived in the Seychelles and trading there for many years after the Second World War. She was the first vessel with an engine in the Seychelles.
End of Diolinda?
In 1960, while en-route from East Africa to the Seychelles, the ‘Diolinda’ was reported sunk following a fire on board
However, this report may have been a mistake because my research shows that Diolinda was apparently sold to a businessman named Mr.Habib Kassam Manji and was renamed Almasi. Habib had a company called “East African Navigators Ltd” – the first such shipping company in East Africa owned by the locals. The company owned Sea Gull and Sea Horse (both purchased from Tanganyika Railways). Habib also purchased many schooners, including Sukarimawe (from Italy), and Maymoon. He also built a ship “Twiga” at Dar es Salaam. He also built a “dockyard” in Dar es Salaam (presently Birth No 5 and 6 in Dar es Salaam). The ships would ply between the coastal towns of Mombasa, Tanga, Pemba, Zanzibar, Lindi and Mtwara, carrying passengers and local produce. The ships also carried aviation fuel from Mombasa to Dar es Salaam for UN army stationed in (Belgian) Congo.
In 1971, reports by 2 Wexford sailors, who were crew on the ‘Irish Sycamore’ at the time, say they saw her still trading in the Indian Ocean.
The end confirmed
In the year 2000, in the Mombasa Register of Ships, ‘Diolinda’ was now recorded as a hulk and lying at Mombasa Port, on her stern her old port of registration ‘Wexford’ was still legible.
Japhet Grandcourt
As a point of interest, Mr. Julien Durup notes that Coxswain Japhet Grandcourt started his seamanship under Captain Thomas Voss on the three masted Diolinda. Mr. Grandcourt was the owner of Ero, a 2-masted schooner that plied between Praslin and Mahe and occasionally to the outlying islands.
Snippet of extra information from Nadia Diadoo-Khan
“My father, Marcel Diadoo, started work on Diolinda when he was 16 years old. The schooner belonged to Capt Voss and later sold to a company in Mombasa, Kenya. He resigned in the 60’s as Chief Engineer. A few months later Diolinda caught fire in Dar-es-Salaam where a Seychellois Engineer by the surname Albert lost his life.”
A model of Diolinda
This richly detailed model of the ‘Diolinda’ under sail, below, made by Mr. Johnnie Walker of Wexford is currently on display at the Rosslare Harbour Maritime Heritage Centre
A model of Diolinda
Below is a Pair of watercolours by Reuben Chappell (1870-1940),showing the three masted schooner ‘Diolinda of Guernsey’ in fair & foul weather.
Diolinda in fair weather
Diolinda in foul weather
Below are three interesting articles relating to incidents on Diolinda on her voyage to the Seychelles from the UK.
An Irishman’s Diary
ARTHUR REYNOLDS
Tue, Nov 25, 1997, 00:00
“Every autumn I think of my late Uncle Willie. From an early age he used to cycle from his home in Dublin’s Sandymount to Phoenix Park, where he collected specimens of butterflies and moths. These he mounted in glass cases which he made himself. He also collected birds and small animals.
Willie Walters worked for my father in a small electrical manufacturing business, and I would spend hours there as a child listening to stories about wildlife while he controlled coil-winding machines. He was also musical and years earlier he had made his own violin which he had played in a ship’s orchestra as a ticket to New York, only to arrive in time for the Wall Street crash in 1929.
In 1936 “Nuncs”, as I called him, saw from the top of a tram a man called Shorty Keegan walking on the street. He knew Shorty was a sailor and thought Shorty could somehow get him a berth to Morocco. Why to Morocco?, you might ask. Well, what “Nuncs” wanted most of all was an Atlas Moth, and he reckoned the place to look was in the Atlas Mountains.
Trip to the Seychelles
Shorty told him over a pint that he was about to leave on a Wexford sailing schooner, the 150-ton Diolinda, for the Seychelles Islands. He could get Willie a berth on it, he said, but its first port of call was to be Cape Town. Willie said nothing about Morocco or moths.
A few days later Willie said his goodbyes and joined the crew to operate the auxiliary engine – an item of machinery about which he knew nothing. The family tried to discourage him, but he said that, as he was not married, this was his chance to come home with plenty of specimens which he would donate to the Natural History Museum. I think he saw himself as a sort of latter-day Darwin.
But after three-and-a-half months, when the Diolinda had failed to reach any port, the ship was given up for loss. I remember my mother and her sisters wearing black. Then, after 126 days, the Diolinda limped into Cape Town on September 17th with her deckhouse washed away by storms and the crewmen shouting “water, water” even before she had docked.
Eating sharks
I went to Cape Town a few years ago to see the large reports in the newspapers of the time about the epic voyage, possibly the longest that had ever been made by an Irish sailing craft without touching land. At one stage they had been only 40 miles east of Cape San Rocque (Pernambuco) in Brazil and were eating sharks and collecting rainwater in sails. The faulty engine had packed up within the first week.
Public donations were invited by the British consul and the schooner was repaired and fitted with a radio for the next part of the voyage up the Indian Ocean. But “Nuncs” still dreamed of Atlas Moths. So, while still in Cape Town, he jumped ship and set out to walk the length of the African continent to reach Morocco. But he had got only about 600 miles when a policeman appeared on horseback while Willie was skinning a snake which had been hit by a car. Our intrepid traveller was put on a spare horse which the policemen was bringing to be shod, and he had to ride an uncomfortable four miles to jail. A week later he rejoined the ship in Port Elizabeth to receive the wrath of Captain Voss for delaying the voyage. While sailing up the Indian Ocean the 119-foot vessel was nearly lost again, but she managed to complete the trip. Willie loved the islands and would have stayed awhile, but he was sent back to Britain by steamer according to the original arrangement. He was given no pay for his year’s work because of his misbehaviour in South Africa, and he had to ask the Missions to Seamen in London for the fare to Dublin.
The Diolinda, which traded between Mombasa and Indian Ocean islands for several years afterwards, was nearly wrecked twice again but was restored. It was illustrated on a Seychelles Islands stamp. Its whereabouts now are unknown, but a sister ship, the De Wadden, has been saved and is on view in a Liverpool maritime museum.”
BATTERED SCHOONER.
The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 – 1954)
Fought Sea for 126 Days. In Port After Perilous Trip. Capetown, Sept. 4.
We are 126 days out from Liverpool and still alive, what more do you want?” said Captain Voss of the battered 150-ton schooner Diolinda when he entered port, and was asked if he had a clean bill of health.
The captain and six seamen fought the sea and often their lives were endangered, for 4 months,
Captain who suffered from shell-shock during the war made his way to the Seychelles Islands, Indian Ocean, which he regards as a paradise and he traded in guano and copra.
He lost his schooner, returned to England and bought the Diolinda, a former wartime Q-boat and shipped a cargo of cement. Several times the vessel was becalmed and then she drifted some 30 miles of Pernambuco (Brazil). Although he was anxious to put in for repair, the crew undertook to see the job through. With the sails torn to shreds and compass broken, Captain Voss ran down his latitude. He remembered the Cape coast as he had been here eight years ago.
The crew were the recipients of beer and delicacies. _
Tweed Daily (Murwillumbah, NSW : 1914 – 1949) Mon 11 Jan 1937
Trouble on a Schooner at Capetown
Five shillings and a bottle of beer apiece for the mutineers ended a dispute at the Cape Town docks on the Diolinda, a 200-ton schooner which arrived there two months ago after a nightmare 126-day passage from Liverpool.
The Diolinda had been thoroughly refitted during her stay and was about to continue her voyage to the Seychelles when three members, of the crew walked off and refused to rejoin their vessel. They complained about general conditions aboard.
For four hours the whole persuasive power of the Harbor staff, the Captain of the Diolinda, the Padre of the Missions to Seamen, combined with the threats of the Railway Police and the Immigration authorities, were unable to move the men.
Late in the afternoon the Padre persuaded the youngest of the three to rejoin the ship. A little later the other two accepted five shillings and a bottle of beer each from the skipper and went aboard to the cheers of a crowd that had watched the argument for hours.
Sources
Sailing merchant Vessels of Ireland and Britain
Mercantile Navy List, 1910, page 584; Mercantile Navy List, 1915, page 673]
Mercantile Navy Lit, 1916, page 681; Mercantile Navy List, 1917, page 679]
Richard J. Scott, Irish Sea Schooner Twilight: The Last Years of the Western Seas Traders (Black Dwarf Publications, Lydney, 2012), page 122; Mercantile Navy List, 1947, page 105
Sailing Ships of Wexford” Cleare and O’Leary, Saltee C Publications 2019
https://www.irishtimes.com/…/an-irishman-s-diary-1.130307
https://khojapedia.com/wiki/index.php?title=Habib_Kassam_Manji
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