A century and a decade ago, Mr. R. W. Leyland of the United Kingdom appeared determined to buck the trend of the last half century of Victorian times by ordering of two massive sailing ships in the heyday of the Age of Steam. Just as oceanic propulsion by wind had boiled over into steam, that period too would soon give way irrevocably to the Age of Oil. These days, Mr. Leyland (not of the car family) would be heralded as a great environmentalist, but in early 1891 many no doubt saw him as a fool. Whatever the opinions of the day, T.R. Oswald & Company of Milford Haven (where we apparently lost Bermuda merchant mariner, A.D.D. Drew, to a German bombing raid in the early 1940s), on the west coast of Wales, was pleased to take a Leyland letter of credit and build the two largest steel-hulled sailing vessels ever constructed.It was 1890 and the two ships were launched in March and July the following year, the beginning of the last decade of Queen Victoria's long reign. The Speke was the first vessel off the ways, with the Ditton splashing down a short time later. The ships were enormous, the Ditton measuring 311 feet long, but having only three masts carrying five great sails apiece. Both vessels had a beam of a little over 42 feet, with a draught of depth of some 25 feet.The Speke had a short life under three captains, but was wrecked at Phillip Island, Australia, while on a voyage from Sydney Heads to Melbourne. According to a web site for Phillip Island, ‘Captain Tilston took charge of her at Los Angeles in 1904 and sailed her to Newcastle, where she loaded coal bound for Peru. She then returned to Australia and off Sydney Heads received orders to proceed to Geelong to load wheat. Sailing south, she battled head winds for 12 days before arriving off the Victorian coast, where Captain Tilston mistook the Cape Schanck light for the one on Split Point and set a course which immediately endangered her as winds and high seas forced her towards the rocky southern coast of Phillip Island. Realising the danger, the crew attempted to “wear” her but when she refused to answer, both anchors were let go and the lifeboats readied. One anchor parted almost immediately, the other dragged and she drifted broadside onto a reef in Kitty Miller Bay, where she was swept from stern to stern by raging surf'. Small portions of the steel hull are a tourist attraction in modern times at Phillip Island.The Ditton sailed on into the new century for a couple of decades, being wrecked at the old age of 30 on November 2, 1921 at Boobjerg on the coast of Jutland, Denmark, on a voyage in ballast from Liverpool to Kristiansand at the southern end of Norway. As the Ditton, the vessel made several runs, probably via Cape Horn, from North Shields to San Francisco in 155 and 180 days respectively in 1897 and 1898. Because you have probably never heard of the place, you may like to know that the voyage in 1899 from Tocopilla to Hamburg took 156 days.The Ditton also made a number of trips from Europe to the Antipodes and several trans-Pacific from Australia to the west coast of North America. On April 4, 1902 at Newcastle, New South Wales, the Ditton embedded itself into history with a spectacular collision with the Port Crawford and the Peebleshire. Similar voyages with some Atlantic work followed in its second guise as the Nordfarer.In her 20th year, she was sold to a Norwegian shipping company and renamed Nordfarer and seven years later was purchased by the Christiansands Shipping Co. of Kristiansand, being called the Bragdo, the name by which Bermudians will always know her. Similar voyages to the Pacific region, with some Atlantic work, followed.As the Bragdo on one such Atlantic trip, the ship suffered considerable damage and headed into Bermuda for repairs. From here in September, 1919, she made a run to Australia with seven Bermudians (Ernest Cassidy, Charles Fox, Herbert Hayward, Archie Saints, George Smith, Henry Smith and Peter Zuill) in the crew, making landfall at Sydney in 126 days, probably east about, driven by the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties. On that trip Herbert Hayward acquired an oil painting of the Bragdo, dated 1920, by the Australian marine artist, Reginald Arthur Borstel, now gracing the walls of the home of relatives, Mr. and Mrs. Irwin Hayward. According to the acclaimed Bermudian marine artist, Stephen Card, Borstel was a ‘pier head painter', waiting on the wharf for customers from the crew of visiting ships.Legend has it that as the Bragdo was leaving Town Cut in St. George's, a member of the crew, a young Dane by the name of Herman Ingemann, literally jumped ship and swam to shore to marry a Bermudian girl. Naturally, in our local naming customs, Herman was known thereafter by the nickname of “Bragdo”. The Ingemanns raised a family and their descendants here today are proof that few seem to have since jumped ship, or plane, to reverse that unusual immigration process. In the wonderful way of the Internet and the tremendous growth in genealogical studies, one member of the present generation of Bermuda Ingemanns has made contact with “Bragdo's” descendant relatives back in the old country, Denmark, 90 years after Mr. Ingemann went for the swim of his life in the warm waters of St. George's.Edward Cecil Harris, MBE, JP, PHD, FSA is Executive Director of the National Museum of Bermuda, incorporating the Bermuda Maritime Museum. Comments may be made to director[AT]bmm.bm or 704-5480.