SAIL AND STEAM ROUND THE HORN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 123, 26 May 1932, Page 6

SAIL AND STEAM ROUND THE HORN.

The most valorous of men have been nursed on the sea, and the late Captain John Bone was one- of them. Forty-two years ago almost to the very day I signed on as boy on the first Tongariro at Lyttclton ffor the voyage around Cape ■Horn. Amongst the passengers were John Prouse, the baritone singer wliom Santley had discovered in New Zealand, Dean Jacob*, of Christchurch, a very frail old man going to Kngland for the last time, and a Mr. Franklin, who was well known in Government Life Insurance circles because of his great reputation as a statistician. After leaving port we soon got into the lower latitudes to catch the prevailing winds, as the Tongariro was propelled by both sail and steam. We were nineteen days in reaching Cape Horn. It wae reckoned one of the coldest and roughest trips the liner had ever struck, and as we neared the Horn huge icebergs floated all around us and huge billows found their way into most parts of the ship. What a responsibility the late Captain Bone carried at that time, but what faith the sailors and passengers had in his courage, and what a profound sense of duty he had. At all hours of the day and night he seemed to be on the bridge, and his skilled training enabled him to proceed at a good speed with the sails set through a tortuous course. As we rounded the Horn we had a following gale, and he seemed to know his ship so well that he was able to take full advantage of it. There was a premium at the end of the trip fior every day that the ship arrived before schedule time, and it is on record that up to that date a quicker trip was never made, and the mails were delivered m London within thirty-nine* day? after leaving New Zealand. If ever I baa a yearning to follow a sea life, after that trip it was dissipated, but the sense of admiration I got for my captain has lasted through all the following years, if not really increased. What nervous energy a man like Cnptain Bone mimt have used up on a trip like that, for the life of a mariner is one of quick resolves, activity and watchfulness. It is not a life like that lived on shore, where after a hard day's toil a person can go to bed and sleep without any disturbance. The sailor must be on the watch by night and by day. What men the days of sail made! On the most fearsome of nights the eails had to be reefed anc the ship put about. The sailor had to go aloft at the risk of his life, and as Captain Bone issued his instructions he knew what was at etake, because he had risen from > apprentice through every stage of seafaring life m the daye of sail. Captain Bono was at his very best in a storm, and as his friends noticed how he mellowed in later years when he took a shore 30b, they never forgot that keen-eyed sailor who in his prime was a man among men. Among the master mariners of his time who were in charge of ocean-going linere .from the- Homeland to New Zealand, he stood out prominently. To see and hear him conduct a service on a Sunday morning —when he liked to have all hie crew around him --was a benediction none of his men ever forgot. It was just one side of his life, the eternal trust in Providence which sustained him in a number of voyages which at his retirement from the sea was a record for the number of years eerved. Captain Bone was a great pioneer sailor, a true Britisher, and a brotherly man who through all the Ion"- years ho lived, whether at sea or on land won the respect and esteem of all who knew him- -W.K.H.