SWAN SONG OF THE WINDJAMMERS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 52, 24 November 1928, Page 29

SWAN SONG OF THE WINDJAMMERS

A RACE ROUND THE CAPE

HOW THE “CITY” BEAT THE

“STAR”

More than a century ago ship-own-ers learned that regular sailings earned the most money. Consequently, as a ship-owning firm prospered it concentrated upon the cultivation of good-will among shippers of one of two British ports and shippers of two or three overseas ports. In those days business connections were established by sailing vessels. Later, however, triple expansion of steam rang the death-knell of the windjammers. To meet the altered circumstances, each rich and prosperous firm sought to divert the best of its trade from its own sailing ships to its own steamers. As the steamers of a line became sufficiently numerous to carry such cargo as that line could obtain, the swiftest of the sailing ships only were grudgingly allowed to remain upon the money-making runs. The slower ships® were sent round the world to pick up freight as best they might.

In 1876 the City lii ■ of Glasgow, owned more than 30 sailing ships, averaging 1000 tons register, and the Star line of Belfast owned nearly as many windjammers of similar tonnage. Both companies had long concentrated upon trade between two ports of Great Britain, and the three principal ports of India, yet never had the champion racer of each line come together to decide which was the better. In December, 1876, the long-desired smile of chance beamed upon us of the City of Lucknow. When we dropped our pilot outside the Hooghly River, off the coast of Bengal, the master of the pilot-brig shouted to us, “The Star of Russia is four hours ahead of you!” The honour of 30 years of trading, and of 30 of the finest and swiftest ships afloat was in our hands. Gladly we accepted the challenge. Seamanlike caution was disregarded. We piled on sail, and trusted to luck to get it off, should the Bay of Bengal display one of its spiteful moods. It was more by luck than by judgment that, before any strong breeze came upon us we contrived to clear the decks of a dangerous litter of hawser, cables, and other obstructions, which we should have put out of the way before spreading the maximum of sail. By hanging every stitch of canvas that the ship could stagger under, we made good time down the bay. We were almost through the region of Indian cyclones when water-spouts cropped up all round us, and in all directions descending cones of blue-black cloud drooped from the dark pall which covered the sky. Next day, mare’s-tail scatters of white scud danced wild fan-dangoes at express speed across the steel-blue heavens.

Threatening as were the portents, however, we merely stripped the ship of the “kites,” and brought her under ordinary canvas. Normally, in those days of dare-devil sailing, when danger threatened it was the custom to “wait and see what is in it.” In accordance with that mad custom we held to spread of all plain sail. Again Fortune favoured the reckless. We were across the path of the cyclone before its fury raged over our track. Not only did we escape the cyclone. We happened into a rattling breeze, where doldrums usually goad seamen to cursing. We sped right into the south-east trade winds. In those delightful hummings we could count upou a gladsome fortnight. In a Cahn. When the trades were dwindling to their last flickers, the royals of a distant ship peeped over the horizon. What little breeze there was we were taking with us. Fence we soon were able to identify our rival. She was halted by dead calm, while we were slowly, yet steadily, creeping upon her. We were right alongside her by the ■time the calm gripped us also. Through the night, whiffs of slumbrous air strengthened into a decent breeze. When daylight showed the horizon there was no sign of the Star of Russia. A few days later we edged shoreward to ask of the meu in charge of the Cape Agulhas lighthouse, off the South African coast, whether she had passed. The answer was, “Star of Russia has not reported here.” We had lost a mile or two for a fruitless inquiry, but we were blessed by a glorious wind and a strong current, and what the “Star” men could do with them we could do. After we had turned the corner crowned by the light upon Table Mountain we danced to the music of half a gale. With main-royal masterheaded, we buried the lee cathead and pretty little fountains spurted through a few of the seupper-holes. The seamen were with us for a single voyage only. To them the reputation of the line began with a derisive grunting about “starvation and slavery.” Racing championships and record passages were of little concern to them. They growled at the spirit of recklessness which was holding canvas to danger of smashing spars, and making extra work for men already giving more than honest value for their 60s. a month and keep. Yet pride held the malcontents from protest which would not be supported by the ship’s apprentices. We lads hail I crowed to the “Star” apprentices. Now j that there was an opportunity to ' justify our erowings, we said, “Let her | rip!” Had those winds been made I to our order we could not have invent- j ed improvements upon what we were getting. They swept us into the south-east trades. There we stretched canvas from the sea surface to a height of 160 feet, and we spread sail across the vessel to five times her beam. That piling was rewarded by 14 days and nights if 14 sea-miles an hour off the 16,000 miles of our racecourse. Yet, while we were so merrily leaving the miles behind us, we were dreading the doldrums belt ahead of us. The Roaring ’Forties.

We might have saved ourselves any anxiety. After only 60 hours’ crawling the ship over an average of about two miles an hour,"a squall lulled into a three-knot breeze. Later the threeknot strengthened into a five-knot breeze. The watch on deck also pointed yards to faint airs from the north-east. They were the last flutters of the trades. Within a few hours we were greeting their full force They took us right into the March gales of the North Atlantic—into the “roaring forties” at the fiercest of the roarings. Our ship was not shy to display Kr sailing qualities, nor were we bashful. What she could not go over we drove her through. Meanwhile, to the mutterings of the men, our master declared. "What, she can't carry she must drag.” A bar of forged iron three-quarters of an inch wide und three inches deep held a corner of a lower-topsail. The strain bit a lump out of the bar as if the iron had been cheese, but the clap, like the crack of a.great gun, did not scare us into easing the strain else-

where. We replaced the bitten bar, and challenged the strain to snap another bite. We knew that the big blows of the Western Ocean were likely to rage until they took a rest, as if to gather force for the next burst. We were in a hurry to make the English Channel while the winds were ramping. Our effort was a great success. We rushed past the English lights and headlands with a full gale greasing the ship’s heels, and wreathing smiles upon the faces of our master and his apprentices. Yet all that glittered was not gold. Our second mate had been accustomed to the West African trade. Despite all his skill at bargaining with niggers, lie was an outsider aboard a champion racing clipper. His retaliation for seven months of incessant grumbling was the misreport of a light to the master. Thus he caused the ship to be steered for the wrong side of Beachy Head. When the master did discover the treachery the ship shied from the wind, and left us to do what we could with a ship upon a lee shore. Only a sudden change of wind or the sacrifice of hawser with anchor and fifteen fathoms of cable could avert shipwreck. While we were being driven toward destruction upou the frowning white cliffs — und we were still reluctant to make the sacrifice—another ship sped past us. Right in the centre of the fairway she was comfortably reeling off a dozen knots toward the winningpost. Saved from the Sands. We recognised our rival and we gaped at her. Our vocabularies were unequal to the occasion. She was only a mile from us but it would cost us a hundred sovereigns to reach her wake. In half an hour the sun would be rising. That was our hope. The sun might bring a change of wind. The sunrise did bring the jump. Cheeringly we swung yards and scooted to follow the Star. She, too, met a perilous mischance. To give wide offing to the Kentish shore her master edged close to the Goodwin Sands. The sudden jump of wind which had freed us pressed the Star helplessly • toward the Sands. Happily a tugmaster dashed with blazing funnels to catch her. The tugboat won, but meanwhile we had romped ahead. We were only a mile from the Star, but it would cost her a lot of money to reach our wake. In the Thames our tugmaster dawdled to wait for flood tide to save our anchoring. The Star, behind us, was meanwhile making all speed that the engines of her tug could master. So it happened that when our ship was slewed to enter a dock gate the Star brushed our stern on her way to a dock nearer the city. The laurels were with the City line. Our contest must have been the last of noteworthy ocean racing by windjammer freighters. Already shipowners had concluded that the extra speed of a sailing ship was not worth the cost of the canvas in excess of plain sail. Both of us had raced under canvases which were relics of old decencies, and never to be replaced. The heyday of sailing vessels had become a memory, and we of the City and the Star had sung the swansong of windjammers. — Bay Webb, in the Melbourne “Argus.”