Star of India (ship)

Star of India docked in San Diego
History
United Kingdom
Name:	Euterpe (1863–1906) Star of India (1906–)
Builder:	Gibson, McDonald & Arnold
Launched:	14 November 1863
In service:	1906
Fate:	Sold to the United States
History
United States
Acquired:	1906
Fate:	Museum ship
General characteristics
Tonnage:	1197 tons gross, 1107 tons under deck (Euterpe) 1318 tons gross, 1247 tons net (Star of India)
Length:	62.5 m (205 ft) LWL 84.8 m (278 ft) sparred length
Beam:	10.7 m (35 ft)
Height:	To weather rail: 7.1 m (23 ft) (full-rigged) 6.5 m (21 ft) (barque rigged) Deck to top of mast:38.8 m (127 ft)
Draft:	6.6 m (22 ft) (fully loaded)
Sail plan:	Full-rigged ship (1863–1901) Barque (1901–)
Star of India
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
California Historical Landmark #1030
Euterpe at Port Chalmers, the port of Dunedin, in 1883
Location	San Diego Embarcadero, San Diego, California
Coordinates	32°43′13.5″N 117°10′24.7″W / 32.720417°N 117.173528°W / 32.720417; -117.173528Coordinates: 32°43′13.5″N 117°10′24.7″W / 32.720417°N 117.173528°W / 32.720417; -117.173528
Built	1863
Architectural style	Three-masted bark
NRHP Reference #	66000223
CHISL #	1030
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	13 November 1966
Designated NHL	13 November 1966

Star of India was built in 1863 at Ramsey in the Isle of Man as Euterpe, a full-rigged iron windjammer ship. After a full career sailing from Great Britain to India and New Zealand, she became a salmon hauler on the Alaska to California route. Retired in 1926, she was not restored until 1962–63 and is now a seaworthy museum ship home-ported at the Maritime Museum of San Diego in San Diego, California. She is the oldest ship still sailing regularly and also the oldest iron-hulled merchant ship still floating. The ship is both a California Historical Landmark and United States National Historic Landmark.

Named for Euterpe, the muse of music, she was a full-rigged ship (a ship that is square-rigged on all three masts), built of iron in 1863 by Gibson, McDonald & Arnold, of Ramsey, Isle of Man, for the Indian jute trade of Wakefield Nash & Company of Liverpool. She was launched on 14 November 1863, and assigned British Registration No.47617 and signal VPJK.

Euterpe's career had a rough beginning. She sailed for Calcutta from Liverpool on 9 January 1864, under the command of Captain William John Storry. A collision with an unlit Spanish brig off the coast of Wales carried away the jib-boom and damaged other rigging. The crew became mutinous, refusing to continue, and she returned to Anglesey to repair; 17 of the crew were confined to the Beaumaris Jail at hard labor. Then, in 1865, Euterpe was forced to cut away her masts in a gale in the Bay of Bengal off Madras and limped to Trincomalee and Calcutta for repair. Captain Storry died during the return voyage to England and was buried at sea.