The Route Of The Clipper Ships

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31215, 12 November 1966, Page 4

The Route Of The Clipper Ships

Along the Clipper Way. By Francis Chichester. Hodder and Stoughton. 256 pp.

Francis Chichester, who has achieved success and fame as an airman and a small-boat sailor, is now attempting the tremendous feat of sailing his yacht single-handed along the course followed by the great sailing ships (windjammers) which, before the days of steam, took Australia’s wheat and wool to England. This was the clipper way. From the English Channel the ships went south through the North and South Atlantic, and south agait to the high latitudes of perpetual westerly gales (the roaring forties). This gave them a fair wind to Australia. Having loaded their wool or wheat they headed south again, ran their easting down, and having passed Cape Horn turned north into the South Atlantic and so eventually back to England. The course they took was not the shortest, but for

a sailing ship it was the quicki est, because they sought and followed favourable winds. In the high southern latitudes the worst weather and the biggest seas in the world are to be expected. There is also the menace of icebergs. It is a voyage on which big sailing ships have been overwhlemed and disappeared without trace. This is where Chichester is • now sailing in his Gypsy Moth rv. , As part of his preparations ; for his great adventure, Chichester has studied the narratives of those who have sailed the route before him. Ir this book he presents what he considers the best of the literature of Cape Horn, to which are added other tales of the sea by those who sailed alone or were professional sailors. It is magnificent reading, and evokes a daunting prospect for a yachtsman who would round the Horn singlehanded.

Sailing men will be pleased to renew the acqmfmance

with Joshua Slocum in his Spray, Conor O’Brien in his Saoirse, Miles Smeeton, twice capsized in his attempts on the Horn, Ann Davison, who sailed her tiny Felicity Ann across the Atlantic, and other notable yachtsmen. There are also extracts from Conrad, Frank Bullen, and an account of Shackleton’s great boat voyage from the Antarctic ice to South Georgia. “Along the Clipper Way” should be addea to the book shelf of every sailing man, and should have a wide general appeal. To read it is to realise the difficulties and dangers which Chichester is now facing, alone, and to realise, too, that if he succeeds his voyage will be ranked among the greatest sailing feats of all time. Why is he doing it? The answer, or a part answer, is to be found in his foreword: . . . “it has a fearsome fascination, and it certainly offers one of the greatest challenges left in.the world.” A