The Tall Ship, Glenlee

A stunning morning in Glasgow, so headed down to the Riverside Museum to take some photographs of the Tall Ship, Glenlee.

The Glenlee is a steel-hulled, three masted barque, and was built for the Glasgow shipping firm of Archibald Sterling & Co. in Port Glasgow at the yard of Anderson Rodger & Company. She was launched in 1896 and circumnavigated the globe four times, passing through the fearsome storms of Cape Horn 15 times.

In 1922 she was bought by the Spanish navy and was modified into a sail training vessel and served in that role until 1969. She then operated as a training school until 1981 when she was laid up in Seville Harbour and largely forgotten about.

In 1990 she was bought at auction and returned to the River Clyde where she underwent an extensive conservation programme by the staff and volunteers of the Clyde Maritime Trust. A visit will shed light on what it was like to live and sail in her, her design and her working lives.

The Glenlee is now listed on the UK Register of Historic Vessels and is identified as one of 50 or so nationally pre-eminent historic ships in the UK. The Glenlee was moved to the new Riverside Museum in 2011.