The legendary Moshulu, a four-masted barque of 3,200 tons gross, was built by William Hamilton & Co., Glasgow, Scotland in 1904 for the G.J.H. Siemers Co. of Hamburg, Germany. Originally launched as the KURT, this state of the art sailing ship was the finest and latest of man's achievements in the world's shipbuilding industry. The vessel has a length of 335 feet (b.p.), a beam of 47 feet and a depth of 28 feet to the main deck. She was heavily constructed and sparred for the long and arduous passage around Cape Horn. When World War I broke out, Siemers ordered the Kurt to remain in port (Astoria, Oregon) for the duration to be safe from British cruisers. When the United States entered the war , the Kurt was appropriated by the U.S. government. The Kurt was first renamed the Dreadnaught and then the Moshulu by Mrs. Woodrow Wilson. The Moshulu sailed under the American flag until 1935 when she was bought by Gustaf Erickson. It was under Gustaf Erickson's ownership that she took part in the famous "grain races" of the 1930's. After a passage from Buenos Aires in 1939, the Moshulu lay in Kristiansand, Norway, a nation that was occupied by Nazi forces. In November of 1942, she was towed to Oslo fjord and at the orders of the German military command was rigged down. Moshulu was used as a floating warehouse into the 1950's until she was purchased by the Finnish State Granary in 1957 to become a grain storage hulk in Finland.