(from the Maritime Art Facebook page)
"The SV Titania was a ship of extreme Canadian importance, as she was the first to transport canned salmon directly from the canneries in Steveston, British Columbia to Europe. She was considered the finest-lined composite-built clipper designed by Robert Steele and was launched in 1866 for Lowther, Maxton & Co. of London. Registered at 879 tonnes, she measured 200’ in length, with a 36’ beam and 21’ depth, with a mainmast of 146’. She originally sailed as a profitable China Tea Clipper making the run to and from asia loaded with tea for the British market, and was the second fastest clipper in the world. She beat the Cutty Sark and Taeping to Shanghai in 1870 and the Cutty Sark and Thermopylae from Foochow to London in 1871 in a record 93 days under Captain J. Dowdy. In 1885 she was bought by the Hudson’s Bay Company for £1400 and barque rigged circa 1886 for the voyage from British Columbia around Cape Horn and across the South Atlantic to London. In total she sailed from British Columbia to Europe and back five times for a total of ten crossings, each crossing taking between 106 and 136 days. She was sold in 1894 to Italian owners before being laid up in Marseilles in 1909 and scrapped in 1910.
In her HBC years, the Titania’s most commemorated crossing was in September of 1889 when she carried the first direct shipment of canned salmon from Steveston, British Columbia to London. Prior to this, canned salmon was shipped by paddlewheel steamer to Victoria before boarding ships to Europe. The Titania was the first European or British bound ship to dock at the Britannia Cannery wharf in Steveston, with large steam tugboats towing her up the Fraser River to the cannery to load her. The HBC ships would unload ballast in Steveston and fill with cases of Fraser River salmon, with the ballast rocks used to build roads and dykes. The HBC benefited from increased stock for the European market and from being in a freshwater port in which to rid the ship’s hull of barnacles."
