M/V Lady Cordeaux, built in US, served Bahamas government as a lighthouse tender 1930s

by Eric Wiberg

MAILBOAT NAME: M/V Lady Cordeaux
PAST NAMES: none known
DIMENSIONS: 115’9″ long, 28’6″ wide, 10’3″ deep, 275 tons, Official # 151881
CONSTRUCTION: wood (believed)

YEAR BUILT: 1922
BUILDER: in Milford, Delaware, USA
EARLY CAREER: Owned by “the Bahamas Government, Nassau, N.P.” likely a tug
CAPTAINS: possibly Mr. J. O’Brien, based on the 1932 citation below
FATE: not known
NOTES: it appears from articles that the Lady Cordeaux was not a mail boat but a government tug.

  
According to a 1928 news article about the Lady Cordeaux rescuing passengers of a Munson liner off Hole in the Wall Abaco, the Lady Cordeaux was a tug:
 
“… The Bahamas Government tug Lady Cordeaux was expected to reach Nassau…” with 75 survivors of the wreck of the Munamar, which went aground mid day on August 12, 1928 on the rocks near Hole in the Wall Light. Apparently the Munson Line tug Colonial and a 6,000-ton vessel, the Halcyon were standing by to assist the Munamar. It is not known when the passenger liner was salvaged, or how.
 
From the Ada Evening News, August 13, 1928 –
 

One references to the Lady Cordeaux and the Hurricane of 1932 in The Great Bahamian Hurricanes of 1899 and 1932: The Story of Two of the Greatest and Deadliest Hurricanes to Impact the Bahamas, By Wayne Neely. This is copyright Harper’s Magazine, an article by Terrence Keogh, May 1933:
 
Describing the Great Abaco Hurricane of 1932 he writes: “….Commander R. Langdon-Jones, D.S.O., Inspector of the Lighthouses, heard from Mr. J. O’Brien, who went to Abaco on the Lady Cordeaux reported that the Imperial Lighthouse at Hole-in-the-Wall was undamaged by the hurricane.” (page 170)
 
This suggest that, along with the fact the Lady Cordeaux was owned by the Bahamas government, that the she, like the Firebird after her, was a Lighthouse tender, not a conventional mailboat.
 


A news article in the Salt Lake City Utah Deseret News dated September 19, 1932 reads: Nassau, AP, Sept. 10: “The relief ship Lady Cordeaux bearing food and medical supplies to storm sufferers in the Abaco group of the Bahamas reached Green Turtle Bay today and found the island devastated. ….The Lady Cordeaux made the 110-mile journey from Nassau at full speed. Heading the relief party were Dr. H. A. Quackenbush of Montraeal and Major Hugh Bell, formerly of St. Catherine’s Ont.”

Source: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=336&dat=19320910&id=X-Y0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=zbUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6111,836478
Source on data: http://www.crewlist.org.uk/data/viewimages.php?year=1940&name=LADY CORDEAUX&page=217&imagesource=CLIP images