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Remarkable photo! Amazing how the ship dwarfs the buildings in the foreground.

Very cool photo. Does anyone know a bit about the ship? My feeble Google search didn't turn it up.

The Ottawa was one of a large number of ships to bear this name, but this particular one was a tanker built at Swan Hunter's Wallsend yard in 1964 for Trident Tankers Ltd.

Thanks. I'll go with "launched in 1964" per above. Added to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_Hunter Thanks for posting these!

This was the first ship I worked on after being transferred on completing my apprenticeship at the Wallsend Slipway. It was 87,000 tonnes and I think it was propelled with a gas turbine engine. The photo was taken on land behind the Hebburn ferry landing on the bottom left of the picture. The Esso Northumbria was 256,000 tonnes

1886 - lots of ships sunk at moorings

14 Ships in total see www.irishwrecksonline.net/Lists/WicklowListA.htm

On 15-16th October 1886 a hurricane, at least equal in intensity to the Great Wind of 1839, devastated the island for two days before leaving a further trail of shipwreck, death and destruction in the Irish Sea, Wales, southern England, and northern Europe and may be the same that swept across Texas and Louisiana on the 12th. Its passage across Ireland was described in daily and regional newspapers; though many have little or no local information. Locally the Wicklow Newsletter had reports, 23rd October to the end of November, from Bray, Greystones, Wicklow and Arklow, but none from the mountains. The damage in Arklow where the flooding and storm damage were worst, was widely reported around Ireland. www.iancantwell.com/pdf/Floods.pdf

The worst damage happened in Arklow when floodwaters, of a height and volume not seen in living memory, floated one of the many dilapidated old hulks lying derelict in the upper part of the river. It collided with the Ida, a schooner owned by James Tyrell, which was hove down on her side and attached to a heavy barge by pulleys for repairs. The three were then swept into the fleet of fishing smacks, anchored lower down, carrying twentythree out of the harbour, while the Ida passed the new pier and was thrown broadside onto the pier slope on the southern side of the breakwater with the hulk’s keel lodged inside, where it rapidly broke up. Most of the smacks were holed below their water lines and sank at the river’s mouth, while the rest were swept out to sea www.iancantwell.com/pdf/Floods.pdf

Some Reports in the Irish times on 17th October 1886

Carl Hagenbeck (1844-1913) was a German wild-animal merchant who pioneered "natural" displays in zoos:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Hagenbeck

from a longer account of the careers of John and Carl Hagenbeck:
"During the First World War, after what Lorenz calls John Hagenbeck’s "adventurous escape from British internment [in Ceylon]" via Java and Italy, John helped his nephew run the Stellingen (Hamburg) Animal Park in very difficult wartime circumstances. One conscripted Stellingen employee actually took his Ceylon Asian elephant "Jenny" along with him to the Western Front to drag timber for trench props, and entertain the delighted German troops with circus tricks in the evenings; Jenny became the only elephant to be listed in the Wehrmacht books as a "war elephant"! "
www.island.lk/2004/08/22/featur09.html

France is a bad place to be an animal in wartime. They ate the zoo animals (at the fancy restaurants, no less) during the 1870 siege of Paris.

This is the kind of history 'snippet' that is just fascinating stuff to read and see pictures of.
Thank you.

Any beast of burden that could be used was used. They carried or pulled ammunition, ordnance, wounded, food, medicine and the occasional General.