Voyage On Captain Cook’s Course

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31089, 18 June 1966, Page 5

Voyage On Captain Cook’s Course

(By ALAN VILLIERS in the “Sydney Morning Herald.”)

IN Sydney some years ago I noticed the tremendous welcome given to a naval training-ship on a Courtesy visit. She was the 1 Chilean steel four-masted auxiliary schooner Esmeralda, a graceful white vessel but, to a seaman’s eye, more motorship than sailing vessel.

The newspapers reported that 200,000 people turned out to welcome her—more than had greeted the Queen Mother. A year or two later I noticed that Sydney financed the America’s Cup challenger Gretel, and did a splendid job with her. Cost, some £125,000, locally raised.

I saw a fantastic concrete construction by Benelong Point, said to be—some day—an opera house. Cost, untold millions, locally raised. I read a report in the “Sydney Morning Herald” to the effect that a motion picture company in Hollywood was negotiating with the Government of New South Wales for the sale of an alleged sailingship, used to libel a former Governor of the State in a very bad film. I knew this vessel to be a twin-screwed motorship with the hull-form and rigging of a 19th century barque—a softwood abortion, a replica of nothing. I thought these things over, in no hurry. I knew that the bicentenary of the effective discovery of our country by the great English seaman James Cook, in the barque Endeavour, was due in 1970, and of New Zealand a year earlier. Both occasions, I presumed, would be celebrated appropriately. This would cost money and then, as like as not, be forgotten. Why not make these celebrations real, with something permanent, and worthy of James Cook? The best way to do this, I decided, was to reconstruct his barque Endeavour and sail

her from England to the Pacific on his route by way of Cape Hom, to bring her by New Zealand to Australia and then, when she had been seen in other ports to preserve her in perpetuity in the grand setting of Sydney’s harbour. For a real sailing-ship is a unique creation, an imagina-tion-stirring triumph of man’s skill and daring in his long fight against the sea, a creation striking in herself and infinite in the power of her image. A real sailing-ship I said, which had actually made a great voyage—not a powered mockery sneaking through canals, nor a piece of theatre setdressed upon a barge one sunny day. Precedents There were precedents enough for these real ships. At Mystic, Connecticut, as part of the “living museum” of Mystic Seaport, lies my own old full-rigged ship, the Joseph Conrad, a little old iron ship, preserved there and used for training. At Portsmouth in England is the famous H.M.S. Victory herself. Lord Nelson’s flagship at Trafalgar, already 200 years old and looking forward to another 200. At Greenwich is the old Sydney-trading clipper Cutty Sark, dry-docked and restored at a cost of £250,000. In San Francisco is the old Scots ship Balclutha; at San Diego the barque Euterpe, century-old New Zealand trader of the Shaw Savill Line; In Stockholm harbour another Australian trader, the ship A. F. Chapman which was once the grain carrying G. D. Kennedy and now, among other things, acts as a pleasant youth hostel in the Swedish capital. Problems All these are run well by responsible bodies charged with looking after them. One way or another, they all pay their way, most as museums in their own right The Victory is adjacent to a museum run by the Society for Nautical research, for the noble ship herself is still an H. ship, flagship of the Commander in Chief, Portsmouth and open, therefore, to - the public. The small charge made for entering the

museum brings in thousands. The Victory’s own ship-shop and donations bring in more. My list is not exhaustive. There are other such preserved ships—in Canada, in the United States of America,

in Finland, in Norway. What these ports and countries can do, I thought, so also can Australia. But how? What could be done about it, practically? I found that plans for the

Endeavour exist in Britain’s National Maritime Museum. A few builders still exist who could build such a ship in the proper manner. There are rope-walks which could still spin her cordage, sailmakers who could sew her sails, riggers who could rig her. As for sailing her, this was a thing which, by God’s grace, I could undertake myself. Since first going to sea in the old Sydney barque Rothesay Bay I had stayed with sail, wherever and however I could find a ship to sail in. I had handled a 16th century barque, 18th century frigates, 19th century full-rigged ships. Here was something I could Paper do: more important, I also had a crew—the last such crew upon earth, probably, of men brought up in sailing-ships and still active in the business of conducting them upon great waters, accepting the hardships, the long watches, the alleged dangers, the rigorous duties of tending such demanding ships as a matter of course—unworried by their lack of power and so • called amenities, untroubled by the challenging fight with the Horn. And so, in July, 1962, I read a paper on all this before a meeting of the Council of ‘the Royal Australian Historical Society at its rooms in Sydney. Quiety introduced, the idea slowly caught on. A trust was formed, with Admiral Sir John Collins as president. A

branch of the trust was formed in Britain, under Lord Boyd of Merton with Admiral Sir Charles Madden, as his executive director.

N.Z. Branch A branch was formed in New Zealand. The Commonwealth and State Governments promised help. Wherever James Cook had touched, from Newfoundland to Hawaii, Tahiti to Alaska, Sydney to the Cook Islands, there was growing interest.

For that little ship, when built and sailed, will bring a sense of wonder, of admiration and of pride to all who climb aboard wherever she may be—above all, to the children and the young people of Australia and New Zealand . . .

This is my hope and for that my crew and I are prepared to sacrifice a great deal. Several of us now are past the age of 60. Cape Horn is no holiday centre: we have been there often enough and could well do without more of it. In our view, it is essential to go that way. Hopes And so we shall go the Lord being willing, and we shall do our best to bring the little ship—when built and paid for—safely on her long voyage. The picture shows Captain Villiers discribing copies of plans and drawings of Captain Cook’s 370-ton barque Endeavour in a broadcast