Disposable ship

Until the end of the 19th century, such ships were common on major rivers such as the Danube and the Rhine in Central Europe and the Mississippi in North America.

It was thus convenient for shipping companies and traders to send cargo by barge-like vessels of a simple construction, on a one-way trip to the end destinations of the Central European rivers, including the Upper and Middle Rhines.

In North America, as the land around the Mississippi was cleared and developed, there was a need for cheap transportation to the larger port cities such as New Orleans, and as on the inner Central European rivers, it was not possible to return upstream.

Agricultural goods such as potatoes, tobacco, cotton, alcoholic beverages (whiskey), grain, and live animals (cattle, chickens, and pigs) could be transported on a flatboat.

His parents had come from Switzerland, where the navigable rivers and lakes had flat-bottomed boats known as Weidling for fishing, freight and passenger transport.

In the middle of the 19th century, wheeled steamers and railways began to replace flatboats, as machine-driven transport was faster and more capable.

First they cut frames of willow, then they stretch hides over these for a covering, making as it were a hold; they neither broaden the stern nor narrow the prow, but the boat is round, like a shield.

So when they have floated down to Babylon and disposed of their cargo, they sell the framework of the boat and all the reeds; the hides are set on the backs of asses, which are then driven back to Armenia, for it is not by any means possible to go upstream by water, because of the swiftness of the current; it is for this reason that they make their boats of hides and not of wood.

The first ship, the Columbus, was launched on July 28, 1824, from the slipway at Anse-du-Fort, the island of Orleans near the city of Quebec, after being built by Charles Wood of Port Glasgow.

With a load of 10,000 tonnes of timber, Columbus was towed by the tugboat Hercules and taken out to sea where it then sailed out on 6 September.

Captain William Mckellar grounded at Bersimis in St. Lawrence on September 9, but continued on and reached the anchorage known as The Downs off the coast of Kent.

Like the Columbus, the ship reached the European Atlantic coast when it sailed into the English Channel on October 21.

During the shipwreck, the ship was broken into three pieces which eventually came into operation with the ocean currents, and ended up on the beaches of Calais on 24 October.

The two ships were described as "rafts" in their time, and attracted attention with their unusual construction and size, with the Baron of Renfrew being 110.8 meters (363 feet) long.

After the loss of the two disposable ships in the year 1825, not only the British timber market had changed when they reoriented towards the Baltic coast again.