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Eveline was built in 1911 (although some records say 1910) in Shanghai at a well established local shipyard called Kwong Fook Cheong, that remained in business until the 1950s. She was built for Charles Sidney Fitzroy Lloyd, a Scotsman from Pittenween (a well known fishing village near Edinburgh from where many seamen were sourced) Lloyd, by 1911 was a well established Supevisor in the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs. The Customs were run by mostly British officials for the Chinese Governemnt since 1845 and employed by 700 Westerners and 3,500 Chinese in what proved to be the only arm of the Chinese Government that never disintegrated during China’s troubles. He had owned several open decked river racing yachts and clearly with his election as Commodore for 1911-12 of the flourishing Shanghai Yacht Club, he had commissioned this yacht. He had her registered upon delivery with Lloyd’s Register of Yachts. Interestingly Lloyd’s stated that she had been designed by the soon to be famous Boston USA yacht designer John G Alden, whose yacht design firm still flourishes. However the Lloyd’s surveyor never sent back to UK, as he should have, the original plans. If he had done so they would be now in UK’s National Maritime Musuem and an invaluable point of reference and it would be possible to confirm the identity of her designer, Alden having no record of this yacht in their archives. She was duly named ETHEL L after his wife and he raced her with some success. After a number of years she came into the ownership of Mr O Bersani, Deputy General Manager of the Compagnie Francaise de Tramways et d’Eclairage Electrique. By 1930 she came into the ownership of Capt Herbert Edgar Middleton MBE, a senior official in the Shanghai Municipal Council’s Finance Department, the council being the organization that ran Shanghai’s International Settlement. He was an active yachtsman throughout his career in China and at one time was Vice Commodore of Shanghai Yacht Club. He changed her name to Eveline, for what reason we do not know as his wife was called Georgina Beatrice. According to Lloyd’s he seems to have owned her up to after World War 2.
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As to when and how Eveline left Shanghai, history does not yet relate. Legend has it she came to Singapore before World War 2 on the decks of an aircraft carrier and was scuttled off Collyer Quay to avoid capture by the Japanese. That she was scuttled is very likely as her compass, clock and barometer, when restored in 1997, all show corrosion and sand impregnantion consistent with a period on the sea bed. After the war legend relates that she was purchased by 3 adventurers
in the early 1950’s who planned to sail round the world,
only to leave Singapore without their charts have a falling out
on board and aborting the trip. This would fit in as her UK port
of Singapore registration was done in 1952, the first official
registering of her since 1948 at Lloyd’s.
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