TRAINING SAILORS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 136, 11 June 1938, Page 8

TRAINING SAILORS.

PROBLEM FOR DOMINION

(By T>3.V.)

When ehip captains, retired and 6till afloat, maeter mariners' organisation, the managing director of a shipping company and even an admiral of the Boyal Navy, deplore, as they have done recently, the lack of pea training facilities for young New Zea landers, the time might be regarded a« opportune to bring up the hoary problem of which ie the better type of training—in eail or in steam.

The argument ie frequently heard that the ultimate place of the modern eailor is in liteamers and motor ships, and that eail training is so much wasted time and effort. "What," these advocates are wont to demand, "is the use of knowing how to wear ship and take out a head earring when that knowledge will never be put to practical purpose? Why worry about yards and rigging when £yroecopic compaeeee and echometers count ? Why spend weary houre holystoning decks when an electric machine does the job in a fraction of the time and with a fraction of the energy?"

It ie true that much of the practical seamanship a nail-trained sailor learns ie of little value in modern craft. The sailor of to-day has little contact with the sea, and is in fact an oceon-going mechanic. He pays his union fees regularly and eees to it that he collect* his overtime. (What eailor in the "windbag*" in the wildest flight* of fancy ever dreamed the day would dawn when eveTy hour over the eight had to be recorded and paid for at stipulated ratee?) Ask him the mechanics of a telemoto anc he will probably tell you the firet time. He can chip paint as well as his sailship predecessor, and may even uee a pneumatic chipper! He may interpret port and starboard as left and right helm. Aek him what ie meant by sailing on n taut howline, and ten to one he will not know. His work doee not demand that he should.

Disaster Does Come. Year after year the ships in which he saila may ply routes through many oceans; year after year they may meet storms and calms (calms have no significance now, except to dyspeptic passengers, who will jrrowl at anything), and during that time suffer no hurt or damage. Conversely, in the eailing daye, many were the craft which glided blithely from port never to be heard of again; many were beaten to submission by the savagery of the elempnts; others, again, killed their crewe.

Occasionally a steamship ie beset by adverse circumstances which call for instantaneous and decisive command. In eome instances —usually followed by lengthy newspaper reports of victirr* , deaths—the man guiding the destiny of ship and crew fails to make the grade. A ekipper runs his ship apxound because he ie careless in making allowance for a *et; a black watch goes crazy with the heat because the engineer could not control them; a tship turned into the wind ie ewept by fire; panicky seamen leap into lifeboats before helpless passengers. All these do occur, as recent maritime history proves, and many will say, "Because the men were not properly trained."

The eailing ship may not allow the sailor to turn in for an undisturbed sleep every night; ehe may not train him to operate a "mad mike," or mix cocktails, but she does inculcate resource, initiative and selfreliance. The sailor must constantly take up cudgel* with tide and tempest; he muet know the wily cunning of sto'm tracks, the deception of set and drift; when to crack on eail and when, often long before the approachiug storm, to ehorten down. An uncanny intuition is born of the square-rigger, for the men withiD her hull are next to the sea. Aloft their very live* depend on true footropes and ratlines and their own etrong hands; a low brace and sheet muet be well belayed and recognieable by instinct in night's blackness.

Britain Losing Lead? There wae a day (after a thorough drub:bin? by the Americans) when British clippers i held domain over most of the world's sea lanes. The Americans build lofty ekys'lyardere and heavily rigged Down-Eastere;"the British, too, built ships where freight capacity counted far more than speed. In their wake came coal-burning steamers, oil-burners, turboelectric and motor ships. From masthead and jackstaff in the.n all the Red Duster flew in frreat prominence. In recent _\o j( i-s the position has altered slightly. The TJed Ensign still commands respect on the high eeas, but the flags of other Powers have gained as much, if not more, prominence in certain routes. It will be said that that is a natural corollary to the universal use of steam and the introduction of fast motor ships—that one nation cannot hope for aver to command the commerce of the world. But, in fairness to "the other side," it should also be pointed out that not one of the foreign nations which have competed po successfully lias abandoned sail training. With many, such is an essential to becoming an officer.

The need for providing training for budding mariners in the Dominion is widely recomieed. For many years the purchase" or* building of a suitable sailing ship liae been recommended, but still thers is neither steamship nor mailer available for the purpose. Were Xew Zealand ever to fill that want, by acquiring a sailing «hip, the move would certainly be applauded not only in New Zealand, but by shipping men throughout the Empire.