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 | Presto
Some pictures of my build in 1:76 scale of the ACW Confederate blockade runner.
"The Presto was inbound from Nassau on her third run through the blockade, with a cargo of shoes, liquor, blankets, bacon, ham, etc. Most of her cargo was on government account, and only a small part of the cargo belonged to private individuals. The crew escaped over the side taking their personal possessions with them. The Federals shelled her with a 300-pounder Parrott and other heavy rifles. The third shot crashed into her and the steamer “was immediately deserted by the loiterers who jumped overboard, took to the shore, and then to their heels in an amusing manner.” The next day the monitors shelled the wreck with their 15-inch guns and completed the destruction. The wreck was fired at one hundred and forty-two times and struck twenty-one times. The soldiers in the fort managed to brave the shelling and rescue a large part of the liquor. The Confederate soldiers got so drunk that it threatened the security of the fort. The Federal commander later wrote that the Confederate troops had a “grand drunk” and he could have captured the entire island with a force of 300 men, if he had just known about the liquor in time. The Presto was described as a very handsome, new steamer with sidewheels and two short funnels painted white, and of 164 tons register. The Presto was afterwards reported as burned to the water’s edge and broken up. (Note One: This was probably the iron hulled steamer Fergus, 553 12/94 tons BM, which was built by Alexander Stephen & Sons at Kelvinhaugh Yard, Glasgow, in 1863. That vessel was a sister ship to the Dare and was built under a contracted price of £12,200. The price probably did not include her engines. Her builders made a profit of £3,500 on her construction. She was originally designated yard #48.) (Note Two: The remains of a wreck in the described location were located and tentatively identified as the Presto by E. Lee Spence and Jim Batey in 1967.)
Note: The foregoing was taken from entry 1864-2-US-SC/GA-1 of “Spence’s List” in Treasures of the Confederate Coast: The Real Rhett Butler & Other Revelations, by Dr. E. Lee Spence, (Narwhal Press, Charleston/Miami, © 1995) and is used by permission."
http://www.searesearchsociety.com/2010/08/shipwreck-1864-presto/
Copied here without express permission....please advise if removal required.
| 39 |  | Queen of the Esk
Built in 2011 from 'Josie Olsen' plans and Instructions. | 27 |
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