On 22nd November Combi Lift loaded the world’s oldest surviving clipper City of Adelaide aboard Combi Lift’s 11,478gt/2010 built Palanpur in Rotterdam. The City of Adelaide was launched at the yard of William Pile Jr., Sunderland, in May 1864 and is one of the earliest composite vessels, of wood on iron frames, in the world.

Firstly the vessel served as a passenger and general cargo vessel running between Great Britain and South Australia. In 1887 she was sold and re-rigged as a barque and from 1893 to 1922 the vessel served as an isolation hospital on the River Test. In 1923 she became a training ship for the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and Naval Drill Ship. In 1947 the vessel became a meeting place/club house for the R.N.V.R. Club in Scotland. After having served the Admiralty for nearly 70 years the City of Adelaide was sold to a trust in 1990, but unfortunately the vessel sank in 1991 at a mooring by the Scottish Maritime Museum and was later refloated and moved to a slipway in Irvine, Scotland, for restoration.

In 1999, the owners of the slipway evicted the museum and having survived demolition attempts, she was acquired by the Clipper Ship City of Adelaide Ltd. (CSCOAL) with the mission to return the vessel to Port Adelaide as a museum. The last voyage of the clipper aboard the Palanpur will see her arrive in Adelaide during January 2014.