FIREWOOD DAYS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 7, 9 January 1937, Page 14

FIREWOOD DAYS.

THE SCOW MASTER.

MAORIS WHO WANT "KAI." SAILED WITH BILL SANDERS. They were having trouble down on the wharf this morning. Not real trouble as big business understands it, but the trouble it means to the crew of a scow when a "stick" of hardwood falls off the wharf during loading operations and embeds itself in the soft mud of the bottom. So the scow was held up (it was to have sailed at 10 a.m.), and over the side the crew and the skipper were fishing with a small anchor—and without much hope. A stick of hardwood means something, when running expenses total £1200 a year and the profit isn't all it might be.

There are problems in scows, and stories, too. And neither is easy 1.0 get at, for the ecowinaster, as a real sailorman, is a modest fellow. The big liner ploughing her way up Kangitoto Channel would pass this scow unnoticed, but aboard lier is a man who has been on the salt since he was 13 (and he is now 46), and who was in sail on the intercolonial trade when a barque meant something in the shipping world. He holds hie master's ticket in sail and steam, and lie was second mate of the Joseph Craig when Bill Sander's, "the V.C. chap from Takapuna," was her first mate.

"He was a darned fine fellow, was Bill Sanders," said the skipper. "A proper gentleman."

The skipper (by the way. lie made it a condition —bo name»!) leaned back on the bunk and 6urveved his seven by seven domain when he wa« asked whether he preferred the scow trade to the deep water. "It's all right." he said. "It's comfortable, and it'll do me." Twenty-four Years Ago. Adventures? No. Not particularly. There were incidents that one remembered for a few days and then forgot. But he dug back through his 33 years of sailing and recalled one near tragedy, now 24 years old. in the barque Selwyn Craig. They were carrying a load of timber from Kopu (in the Thames River) to Adelaide, and according' to instructions they should have had green timber at the bottom and dry timber on top. Cnknown to them it had been reversed.

"All went well for a while," he said, "with fine weather and fair winds. Then down came the weather from the north'ard, and over we went on our side. It was about midnight, and we were under full sail. We couldn't get the yards down, and we thought it was the end. However, about 4 a.m. we managed to get down all her top hamper—foret gallant, the main and the mizzentops'les—and we carried on with only the lower canvas and a tarpaulin in the inizzen. Even then we made Wilson's Promontory in 14 days with an easterlv favouring us. Then in Bass Strait w'e struck westerlies and it took up 52 days to Adelaide." . . . Just an incident that one remembers for a few davs.

The r;argo i* still timber, but humble timber—tea-tree firewood. And, believe the skipper, it is not easy stuff to handle. Every "stick" has to be handled, as he will tell you. The scow is his own, but he does little private trading. Mostly he carries for the big firms. He lias bought a load or two.himself and <sold it on the wharf, but it is only for winter sale that that pays, he says. And there is a lot of trouble in getting it. The Way of Trade.

"Up about the Barrier, when you want the Maoris to go in and cut some timber for you, some of them want 'kai' firsttucker. v'know—and they'll have a real tangi if you give it to them, and then want some more before they will work for you," and the skipper grinned in remembrance.

The steady summer firewood trade is the best. he said. That i» how a great (leal of Auckland s firewood comes in. Ihe scows sometimes go out into the open sea to the Bay of Islands or tthakatane, but mostlv thev beat about the islands of the gulf, with the weather to be watched all the time. Scows are not the best of craft to strike bad weather in, and if the cargo is stock or sheep— well, it isn't healthy. The nearest shelter has to be sought, and then there is the problem of grazing and water to be overcome. Sometimes, too the scows carry sand or shingle, but mostly it U just firewood. Sand and shingle brought the talk to the bad old days when those commodities were at times pirated from the beaches about the gulf. There is none of that now, nor for quite a long time past, according to the skipper. Everything has to be bought. There are enough problems even in firewood carrying, without looking for trouble. The wood has to be taken off the beaches on the various islands, and to get it the scow has to be grounded at half-tide, loaded and then taken out on the following tide. If conditions are not suitable another beach has to be sought. Then again tea-tree is gradually being cut out on many of the nearer beaches, and the scows have to go further and further afield.

So the scow was loft. A small element in the world of commerce, yet a world in itself to those on board, the skipper, his wife and son (who are sailing with it for the holidays onlv) and the crew of three. The wife and son were pealing the potatoes and preparing the mid-day meal—and the crew! They were still fishing for that lost "stick."'