The 1885 barque, Polly Woodside, at rest in Melbourne

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The photo shows the Belfast-built Polly Woodside, an iron-hulled, three-masted barque. It was first launched in 1885 and is typical of its time. It is named after the first owner’s wife, and operated as a cargo vessel between British ports and South America. She sailed a number of times round the risky Cape Horn with a complement of mostly less than 20 sailors. In 1904, she was renamed the Rona, after a daughter of a shareholder of the new company owners. During World War II, she was requisitioned by the Royal Australian Navy as a coal lighter. By the early 1960s, Rona was the last of her kind still afloat in Australia. In 1968, She was purchased from Howard Smith Industries for one cent. Her new owner was the National Trust of Australia. After twenty-seven years of restoration, and renamed the Polly Woodside, she opened to the public in 1978 and is now landlocked on the Yarra River near Melbourne. IN 1988, the World Ship Trust’s seventh maritime heritage award was bestowed on Polly Woodside for "supreme achievement in the preservation of maritime heritage’.