Lily (ship) explained
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Ship Name: | Lily | Ship Builder: | Dickie Brothers in San Francisco | Ship Completed: | 1882 | Ship Refit: | 1934 |
Ship Type: | Schooner - frigate - schooner | Ship Length: | 31.25m (102.53feet) | Ship Beam: | 8.78m (28.81feet) | Ship Draft: | 2.68m (08.79feet) |
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Lily was a two-masted
schooner (1882) which in 1934 was modified for use as the 18th century
full-rigged ship in the 1935 film
Mutiny on the Bounty with Clark Gable and
Charles Laughton.
Origin
Lily was designed by the shipyard Dickie Brothers in San Francisco and built in 1882 for the shipping company J. C. Hawley. She had a sister ship named Ivy.
United States west coast newspapers reported about the career of Lily. Right after the vessel's launch, it was noticed that her rigging was too large. So, 11feet were taken off her main mast, and the foremast was shortened accordingly.[1] In 1895, she was converted from a sealer to a society racer.[2] In January 1909, coming from Umpqua River, Oregon, she had to weather a storm outside San Francisco.[3]
Lily had more than one movie "career". The first ended 1921, when another sale was announced.[4] After a short stint in Mexico, a man named Captain All acquired the schooner for business in Nicaragua.[5] It appears that this business, including liquor transport, was not all legal; Captain All lost the vessel to the state of Canada.[6]
Film business
In the late 1920s, Lily was active in the film business again. Amongst others, she appeared in the movies The Single Standard,[7] a silent film with Greta Garbo, and in The Ship from Shanghai,[8] still in schooner rig.
Lily was eventually acquired by the film production company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer who had her rebuilt by the Wilmington Boat Works in Wilmington, California in 1934[9] to resemble the three-masted full-rigged ship Bounty[10] [11] in Mutiny on the Bounty.[12] For film shoots at the original locations, Lily / Bounty sailed to Tahiti and back, together with the second ship of the production, Nanuk, which represented the historic frigate HMS Pandora.[13]
Only in 1946, there is a report stating that her "film career" came to an end:[14]
Several photos and sketches of Lily can be found in JaySea's blog The First Bounty Replica.
Notes and References
- News: 1882-10-14 . Local Matters . en . Humboldt Times . XVIII . 89 . 3 . Eureka, California . 2023-05-18 . The schooners Ivy and Lily, recently built in San Francisco by the Dickie Bros, for Falk & Hawley, were found to be improperly rigged, und will be altered. .
- News: 1895-04-07 . Fate of a famous craft . San Francisco Call . 77 . 118 . 7 . 2023-05-18.
- News: 1909-01-29 . Schooner Lily, Which Disappeared on Stormy Night, Shows Up Again . San Francisco Call . 105 . 60 . 13 . 2023-05-18.
- News: 1921-12-21 . Schooner Lily's Career as a Film Actor is Ended . San Pedro News Pilot . 9 . 68 . 4 . Los Angeles . 2023-05-18.
- News: 1923-03-19 . Capt. All Buys Schooner Lily . San Pedro News Pilot . 8 . Los Angeles . 2023-05-18 . The schooner Lily. which has been used in motion picture work and later as a fish carier on the Mexican coast, has been sold to Captain Carl All [...] for operation in Central America..
- News: Keavy . Hubbard . 1930-09-29 . Movie Ships Cash In on Years at Sea and Earn More Per Day Than Most Actors in Hollywood . San Bernardino Sun . 67 . 29 . 4 . 2023-05-18 . The Lily, a two-masted schooner, [...] was a liquor carrier for five years under Nicaraguan register, then was captured and confiscated in 1921 by the Canadian government. .
- The Single Standard (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1929)
- The Ship from Shanghai (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1930)
- News: August 14, 1934 . Bounty Again to Ride Seas – Wilmington Boat Works is Builder of Replica of Historic Craft . San Pedro News Pilot . 7 . 139 . San Pedro, Los Angeles . 2023-05-17 . the “Bounty” hides beneath its new exterior the hull of the venerable Pacific coast windjammer “Lily.” .
- Old Sailing Vessels "Made Up" as Famous Ships for the Movies . Popular Science Monthly . January 1936 . 20–21.
- Web site: https://web.archive.org/web/20120222032844/http://www.winthrop.dk/bounty/lily.html . The Lily, H.M.S Bounty. . 2012-02-22 . dead.
- Mutiny on the Bounty (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1935)
- Web site: The First Bounty Replica . 2023-01-29 . JaySea . en . 2023-05-22 . the Pandora had started its life as a wooden three-masted schooner that served in the California lumber trade named the Ottilie Fjord. .
- News: 1946-07-25 . Maritime Notes . San Pedro News Pilot . 19 . 126 . 9 . Los Angeles . 2023-05-18 .