CHEQUERED CAREER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 119, 22 May 1931, Page 9

CHEQUERED CAREER.

THE CLIPPER SOBRAON. ONCE THE "BAD BOYS' SHIP." USE AS HOSTEL FOR UNEMPLOYED. Some ships live uneventful lives and are forgotten as soon as their moneyearning days are over; others win fame as well as gold and still sail over the sea of memory. To the latter category belongs, or soon will belong, the Tingira, better known as the old Sobraon. A message from Sydney says that this one-time clipper, which has already served as a reformatory for bad boys and training ship for young Australians keen to spend their lives in the Navy, is at present being converted into a floating hostel to provide a home for a section of Australia's army of unemployed. It is getting on for 70 years since the Sobaron left the ways at Aberdeen, She was the creation of Hall, a shipbulder who put more than one famous clipper into the water. She was a composite ship and her timbers were of teak, than which there is no better wood that can be put into a vessel's hull. Full two acres of canvas she could spread and there were times when she sped down the Roaring Forties at seventeen knots and showed her wake to quiet respectable coalburning steamers. Beat the Cutty Sark. The Sobraon lived her proudest days at a time when the clipper ship reached her peak. The world-famed Cutty Sark, the renowned Thermopylae and the speedy Red Jacket were only a few of her rivals in those far away years, and such were her performances that she is entitled to be ranked with the best of them. It is on record that the Sobraon once beat the Cutty Sark in a run from London to Sydney, making the journey in 73 days. The 'sixties and 'seventies were years when the coal burners issued their first serious challenge to the ships of sail and it was necessary for clipper skippers to "crack on" even at serious risk to their own lives and ships. And the Sobraon was one of those ships which "cracked ou" and came through, without disaster..

Her accommodation, too, was much above the average and she was always a popular ship with passengers wanting to make a quick and comfortable trip between the Homeland and the colony. A Hopeless Fight. But the fight which the sailing ship waged against the steamship was a hopeless one from the start and the day came when the Sobraon and many of her sisters could not be run at a profit. When this day arrived many of the Australian clippers passed to foreign owners and went careering down sea roads that they had never known before. Others were laid up and allowed to rust and rot until some unsentimental official decided that they were not even seaworthy enough to remain at anchor and ordered them to be repaired or sunk. For the Sobraon a different fate was in store —she was purchased by the New South Wales Government and converted into a reformatory ship for bad boys. For years the Sobraon was the black ship of Port Jackson. Small boys in Sydney grew up to regard her as a, terrible place indeed and many a parent maintained strict discipline in his home with the threat, "I'll send you to the Sobraon." Talcs of the cruelties which occurred on board the old clipper are probably grossly exaggerated, but it is certain that her decks were the scene of heavy floggings, for the "crew" of the ship during those dark clays were generally a real hard lot. The mere mention of the clipper's name was enough to strike fear into the heart of the average Sydney youngster, Commonwealth Training Ship. After 20 years as something but little elevated from a convict ship the Sabraon appeared in a role more fitting to her early glorious days. She was purchased by the Commonwealth Government for a training ship. Renamed the Tingira, she was the school at which many of the present officers of His Majesty's Australian Navy learnt their naval lore. And now the Sobraon is to become a hostel for men who are not able to find work. What will be her end? No one knows, but there is at least one man who cares a great deal. He is James Cameron, who was foreman carpenter at Hall's shipyard when the Sobraon was built. It is said of Cameron, who is believed to be now living in the backblocks of New South Wales, that "he took such pride in his job that he went to sea in the ship as carpenter and stayed there Avith her during the whole of his seagoing career from 1860 to 11891." ' •