Shipping Lines - A fascinating tale of a South Seas drifter with local roots

An impressive view of the bowsprit and masts of the Alvei.

My interest was initially stirred in the steam drifter Tweenways during a conversation with the late Iain T. Smith of William Street, Ferryden back in 2001. She was firstly a fishing vessel built by the London and Montrose Shipbuilding and Repairing Co. Ltd., at their Waterside shipyard, to the order of Mr. R Frater, of Ramsgate, Kent.

She was launched from the shipyard at the southern end of Ferry Road, traces of which can still be seen - a wall of the former plating shed and some dressed stone slabs from the old slipways can occasionally be observed exposed in the sand below the Upper Light during certain tidal phases.

In 1925 she was sold to the Chard Steam Trawling Company, also in Ramsgate, and continued fishing. The Second World War came and she was requisitioned by the Royal Navy to serve as a minesweeper. Prior to the ending of the conflict she undertook harbour duties, being “demobbed” in 1946.

Her first major change came the following year when she was purchased by Kai L Moller of Svendborg, one of the last havens of commercial sail trading vessels in Denmark.

However, her change to sail propulsion would be some time off, as she became a motor coaster in 1948 with a diesel engine replacing her original boiler and steam engine.

She was renamed Alvej. Further owners followed and in 1954 she departed for Norway and became homeported at Haugesund. Throughout the 1960s and 70s she traded along the coast of Norway, continuing to be registered at Haugesund. Around that time, in 1962, her measurements were given as 105 grt and 52 nrt. By 1977 her port of registry became Floro reflecting yet another change of ownership within Norway.

On July 15, 1986 she was sold to Evan Logan and Bonnie Walts. Captain Logan later bought out Bonnie, having sailed the ship to Gaia, Portugal for conversion to a sailing ship.

They gave themselves, together with a group of fellow enthusiasts, two years for the work to be done but in the end it took more than seven to complete the project, eventually setting out in 1995 to reach the South Seas. In the interim the necessary gear was acquired from a variety of sources. The ship was apparently acquired for US$13,000, but the complete conversion costs added a substantial sum to this total.

So, renamed the Alvei (Norse for “one who sails everywhere”), she set out under sail for the first time in her 75-years’ life. A shake-down cruise to Vigo, Spain ended up not quite as planned when she scudded before gale-force winds and 25-foot seas. Alvei then embarked on a seven-year circumnavigation, sailing via the Canary Islands and the Caribbean into the South Pacific.

I tried to contact her owner, then based in Australia, but he was in Tonga at the time. On his return he could not add to the information I already held, but confirmed, “the Alvei’s hull is in good shape”. A tribute indeed to the men who built her. I did however offer him a berth in Montrose if he would bring his ship home. Sadly, Evan Logan passed away at Suva, Fiji in February, 2019 and did not live to see his ship sail up the South Esk past her birthplace in August...To be continued.