The Voyage of James Courtis Loveluck on the SS Ingoldsby

In the spring of 1885 James Courtis Loveluck, who was 18 years old at the time, made a voyage by sea from Cardiff to Istanbul, and then on to the Ukranian ports of Odessa and Nikolayev. The Captain of the ship, the SS Ingoldsby, was his uncle, Thomas Owen Davies (his mother's brother), as confirmed by John Dixon's list of Ships of the Loveluck and related families, and his aunt also made the voyage. He wrote a journal describing his voyage in some detail. The journal is written in a fresh, lively style, and includes occasional glimpses into his family life. Here are a couple of samples of scanned pages from the diary:

You will find below a transcript of part of the journal, the outward voyage up to the time when the ship is ready to leave Nikolayev, together with some associated information.

The handwriting was mostly fairly legible, but there were a few words which I wasn't able to make out, and I've indicated these by (??). There were also some that I was uncertain of, and these are flagged by (?). Some words were misspelt, and here I haven't been very consistent. If I thought it was a "typo", I corrected it, otherwise I left the original spelling. Of course, I've probably added my own typos to make matters worse! On the other hand, JCL was somewhat sparing with punctuation, and I have preserved the original punctuation much as it was.

Part 1 - The Outward Trip

You can follow his voyage in several ways:

For the latter item, clicking on buttons will link to the appropriate text in the journal.

Part 2 - The Return Trip

The SS Ingoldsby

Before I found out that John Dixon had lots of information about Ships of the Loveluck and related families, Robert Sanders helped me to trace the SS Ingoldsby. Later Gilbert Provost provided me with the following details of the ship taken from the 1887-88 edition of Lloyd's Register:

INGOLDSBY
Call sign: WBLN        Official registration #: 83821

Rigging: iron single screw Schooner; 1 iron deck; 2 tiers of beams; 
         4 cemented bulkheads; double bottom aft 67 feet long, 
         forward 59 feet, 205 tons; Aft Peak Tank 12 tons.
Tonnage: 1,254 tons gross, 1,051 under deck and 810 net.
Dimensions: 235.5 feet long, 32.2 foot beam and holds 17.8 feet deep;
         Raised Quarter Deck 88 feet; Bridge Deck 50 feet; Forecastle 25 feet.
Construction: 1881 by Palmers' Co. in Newcastle
Propulsion: compound engine with 2 inverted cylinders of 28 & 54 inches
         diameter respectively; stroke 36 inches; operating at 75 p.s.i.; 
         99 horsepower; engine built by the same company as the hull.
Owners: Lee, Finch & Co.
Port of registry: Cardiff
Port of survey: Cardiff

Following is the extract for the SS Ingoldsby from John Dixon's Ships of the Loveluck and related families:

Ingoldsby 83821
1883	25 July, m 28 Sep 3 Dec 		Master TO Davies
1884	18 Feb 27 Ap, 31 Jly for 4 Dec m
1885    1 Jan 7 Mar 85 Black Sea, Russia, 1 Oct	JHC Loveluck diary,
						Master TOD
1886    Feb 26 11 Jly 22 Sep grounded Aug11/30
1887

Nikolayev

Here are a couple of pictures of Nikolayev from postcards dating from about 1905, courtesy of John Dixon: