102' Kemp Screw Schooner (1885) - AMAZON

AMAZON was launched at Northam, Southampton at 1200 on Monday, 29 June 1885 as a ‘screw schooner’ (a propeller-driven steam yacht carrying auxiliary sail).

Designed by Dixon Kemp (the guru of British yachting in the way that Capt Nat Herreshoff was for American yachting), and built at Tankerville Chamberlayne’s private yachtyard, no expense was spared in creating AMAZON.

AMAZON is of carvel construction, with an elm keel and oak frames from the Chamberlayne estate, reinforced with heavy wrought iron bronze-bolted strap floors, and planked with teak topsides and pitch pine bottom. Her hull is still largely original, with only minor work carried out. She has been copper sheathed since 1885; when the sheathing was replaced in 1999 the hull behind it was found sound.

She has had a variety of deckhouses fitted and removed during her long life to suit the whims of her owners.

AMAZON is very likely the last ocean-going wooden Victorian screw schooner hull remaining. Her original boiler and engine were kept in operation until they were removed in 1937 and an oil engine fitted. Her current engine is a Kelvin R6 Diesel of 120 BHP / 112 SHP fitted in 1999.

For motor-sailing, and sailing in the Trade Winds, AMAZON sets a simple square rig on her foremast (a course and raffee), with gaff rig on her mainmast. Whether she is consequently to be called a brigantine or a schooner (with a flying square rig on her foremast) may be the cause of some debate; beer, rum, or other alcoholic beverages have been known to inspire eloquence on this important point!

In 1885 AMAZON was reported to be ‘extremely handsome and unusually fast, and a capital sea-boat’.

At 124 years of age in the spring and summer of 2009 AMAZON crossed the Atlantic Ocean, cruising from the Mediterranean via the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, Barbados, the Caribbean, and Bermuda to New England.

In the fall of 2009 AMAZON visited the Herreshoff Marine Museum for several weeks, before becoming a visiting exhibit at Mystic Seaport from November 2009 until June 2011.

At 126 years of age in the summer of 2011 AMAZON cruised from New England to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, then crossing the Atlantic Ocean again to Ireland.

Having been present in the Solent on 26 June 1897 as a spectator yacht at the Royal Fleet Review for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, AMAZON is unique for being the only vessel that was also present in the Pool of London on 3 June 2012 at the Thames Pageant to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee.

AMAZON has since been in the Mediterranean again, but has returned to her ‘home’ waters (Southampton Water) for the time being. A steady programme of maintenance designed to ensure AMAZON’s continued survival as an operational original historic artefact has been undertaken with exceptional and painstaking care over the last few years.

Her teak topsides have been splined, her deck is being re-caulked and re-payed, and when she has been painted and varnished she will look splendid afloat again later in 2026.

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AMAZON was launched only 23 years after USS MONITOR (1862), 16 years after CUTTY SARK (1869) and some 26 years before RMS TITANIC (1911).

Now, in 2026, 141 years since her own launch, AMAZON looks to the future and sends to all at the Worldwide Classic Boat Show her message from the International Code of Signals:

INTERCO UNIFORM WHISKEY
(‘I wish you a pleasant voyage’)!