GRACE HARWAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 27, 2 February 1932, Page 3

GRACE HARWAR.

SAILING SHIP ARRIVES

GOOD VOYAGE FROM AFRICA

"ONLY SEVENTY-TWO DAYS."

"The mate swore softly, spat over the side, and then turned to mc. That's one of the most beautiful sights in the world, he said. That and a field of corn, and a woman with her child." Masefield was writing about a fullrigged clipper ship. There are few of them left nowadays, probably none at all, but there is still romance in the sea, and there are still ships that sail. One of them is now in the port of Auckland at King's wharf. She is the Grace Harwar, a full-rigged ship of over 1200 tons. She has come" from the tiny island of St. Juan dc Nova, in the Mozambique Channel, off the coast of Africa, with a cargo of guano, approximately ISOOO tons. This guano, one learns, is to be mixed with superphosphate, and then it will be a fertiliser that will help the New Zealand fanners' cows to produce more and better milk. Seen off Tin Tiri, at five o'clock gjhis morning, the Grace Harwar was just a dim presence. Her lofty masts, with their spreading yards, were like fairy filaments spun on a bed of roses. The sun was rising over Coroinandcl, and its earliest beams saw what the port of Auckland has not seen for over three years—a full-rigged sailing ship. Slowly the mist that covered the graceful outline of the Grace Harwar dissolved, and, in the full morning sunshine, she came slowly up the gulf into the Waitemata. "Pity she couldn't have sailed in," said an old-timer, who knew, as well as anyone else, that there was no wind. "Good to see her, anyway!" said another. Towed into Port. Towed by the Harbour Board's tug Te Awhina, the Grace Harwar came slowly towards Auckland on a sea that was like a still lake. There were shoals of tiny fish disturbing the surface near Cheltenham Beach, but few were up to see them. Lady Yule's steam yacht Nahlin passed the big ship just beyond Rangitoto Beacon. The yacht sounded a siren, and possibly somebody in the Grace Harwar waved a hand. The men on the big ship were tired; they worked for their living, and they had come many, many miles over the seas, and not on pleasure bent. The "Roaring Forties." The "doldrums" of the southern Indian Ocean arc dreaded by mariners, but tho big ship was lucky, for she was becalmed, only for two weeks; not like the four-masted barque Olivcbank, in the same ownership, whoso crew had to watch "a painted ship upon a painted ocean" for seven weeks and two (lays On her 1026-7 voyage from the Seychelles to Auckland. The second mate, Mr. Waldemar Gcelnard. of the Grace Harwar, mentioned a day, just after the first slight calm, when his ship "tore into it," and logged well over 200 nautical miles in one day. . Such records as this cannot possibly compare with the Cutty Sark's 420 miles in a day, nor the great days of Lightning and Thermopylae, when they were running the Easting down after passing Cape Horn, but, all the same, for a big ship like the Grace Harwar, it is a good performance. Loaded heavily with guano, which is just a sage-green powder, but heavy, the ship now at King's wharf is just a draught horse of the seas when compared with such oceangoing yachts as the tea-clippers, mentioned. Nevertheless, the Grace Harwar is still a full-rigged sailing ship, and she has come in—7l full sailing days from Juan de Nova to Auckland. "Where's That Royal Yard?" She is owned by Captain G.ustav Eriksen, of Marichomn, Finland, who owns most of the other sailing ships of the world. She is commanded by Captain Gunnar Boman, and her mate is Mr. Nils Berg. A full-rigged ship is one that is square-rigged on all masts. It was noted by one or two critical observers this morning that the Grace Harwar carried a royal yard on one mast only, the mainmast, and some or the old-timers asked what had happened to her royal yard on j the fore and mizzen. The explanation is simple: In anticipation of a race in front of the "Roaring Forties," the royal j-ards of both main and mizzen were stowed in the forecastle hold. It was thought that they would not be needed, for, in a very heavy blow, they would be more than the ship could stand, considering her very solid and heavy cargo and the strain on the masts.

Even alongside King's wharf, with the "grabs" powdering her with guano dust, the Grace Harwar is a thing of beauty, a definite link with the old days, if not the great days, of sail.