The Ilen

The Falklands Link

Throughout her long life, the Ilen has been a lucky ship. From January 1927 onwards, she was working for her living in some of the most demanding waters in the world, ferrying people, school teachers, sheep, stores and mail between the scattered island communities of the Falklands. Her traditional rig and reliable old Kelvin engine gave trustworthy service year after year, and the familiar shape of her rugged hull became part of the fabric of life in those remote islands whose threatening rocks failed time and again to wreck her.

For nearly fifty years she was the faithful workhorse of the Falkland Islands Company. Her longest-serving skipper was Sandy Bonner of Speedwell Island. He died in 1960, but the old boat had played such an important part in the life of the Bonner family that when the Company decided to replace Ilen in the early 1980s, Sandy's daughter, Mrs Yona Davis, bought her for her son Maurice, who continued to carry cargoes with the old ketch for nearly ten more years. When the Irish sailor John Gore-Grimes called at the Falklands in 1987 during an Antarctic cruise, he was delighted to see the Ilen at Port Stanley: 'She is still afloat and plying her trade' he wrote, 'She looks just fine, and her hull is painted green'. 

Ilen's working life finally ended in the early 1990s. But in testimony to the integrity of Tom Moynihan's shipwrights in Baltimore, her hull was still in good order, and the engine ran sweet as a bird. The boat was bought by islander Paul Ellis, who planned to use her for leisure purposes. But the harsh climate of the Falklands is not conducive to relaxation afloat, and Ilen became a little-used fixture of the Port Stanley waterfront.