dwindling fleet of WINDJAMMERS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 70, 16 December 1937, Page 20

dwindling fleet of WINDJAMMERS

Barques In The Grain Trade HOW THEY STILL EARN A LIVELIHOOD

(By

S.G.)

Solitary sails swaying along lonely sea-lanes, the last of the dwindling fleet of great deep-water sailing-ships, are now outward bound to South Australia to load wheat for Europe. Every year sees their company reduced; today there are only 15 of them still afloat, where 20 years ago there were more than 60, and another decade will see them finally vanish from the seas. All who have ever known the majesty and beauty of a stately square-rigger under all sail at sea will agree that the seas will be the poorer for their passing. - In 1931, beating down the English Channel in a fishing ketch, I passed the four-masted barque Ponape running, all sail set, before a fresh breeze that later blew up to a full gale. We were about 10 miles off the Start Point when the helmsman sighted a tall white tower of canvas leaning above the horizon. So rare is the sight of a sailing ship at sea, even in the Channel, that he did not at first realise what it was. It drew nearer surprisingly fast and now one could distinguish the shapes of the bellying sails, the lean hull with a white wave breaking at the bow, the lofty spars swaying slightly as she rolled. She came rushing past not 100 yards away, and we could distinguish the seamen, glad to be making landfall after 98 days at sea, waving from the deck and. in reply to our signal, the gay red and white of the Answering Pennant climbed fluttering to her yardarm. The sunlight made a pattern of grey shadows on her bleached sails, and we were speechless with admiration for the size and grace and splendour of that old-time, ship, and stood gazing after her until sh) had dwindled to a speck. Now very soon such a sight will be no more seen on the high seas, and only in the pages of the voluminous literature of sail will it be possible to gain any conception of its glory or its hardship. And it is only in its last stages, fighting a losing battle against the inroads of steam, that sail has been brought to its highest-, stage of commercial efficiency. The much-lauded clipper ships of the last century were specialised craft for the rapid carriage of small quantities of valuable cargo; the big steel barques of to-day possess many of the clippers’ virtues in addition to infinitely greater earning power. “Sail’s Epitome.”

“They are designed to carry the maximum loads of all types of commodity anywhere in the world at reasonable speed, with only meagre crews. Lacking the daintiness, handiness and sweet lines of their speedy progenitors, they nevertheless represent at their prime sail’s epitome of combined strength, seaworthiness, economy, and longevity,” writes Mr. W. L. A. Derby, in a newly-published history of the last years of sail. Mr. Derby describes the conditions that have made it possible for the square-rigger to survive so far into the age of power and to come successfully through the longest and worst slump in shipping history. The wind ship, he points out, has an advantage when using the antiquated loading facilities of out-of-the-way ports, where a steamer is involved in costly waste of time. The outward passage in ballast to such a port, where no inward cargo trade exists, again favours the sailing ship, as her economic running is based on the handling of a single cargo a year. Her lower freight rates and big capacity enable her to compete with steamer traffic at such ports, in spite of the higher rate of insurance of her cargo. Her lengthy ocean passage may actually prove an advantage with certain rough cargoes, saving warehousing and in some eases permitting of profitable speculation by the sale an'd resale of the cargo while she is homeward bound. Such a trade is the South Australian grain carriage from the tiny ports of the Spencer Gulf —a trade that has in recent years been the mainstay of the windjammers. The gulf is the natural outlet of a vast wheat-growing area. Many of the ports are no more than a mile-long jetty and a great stack of sacked wheat standing on a sandy, treeless shore, with no more than a few houses to uphold the title of township. Here the grain ships can load at leisure, even in some cases anchoring far offshore and lightering the grain, to be slung on boat'd bag by bag. Such laborious methods attract few big steamers to compete with the low freight rates accepted by the barques. Timber and Guano.

So the sailing ships come out to the Gulf in ballast, for the sake of the homeward charter. Through the slump that one annual cargo enabled them to carry on. But this year eight of the fleet were chartered to load Baltic pine for South African ports on the way out, and two in addition obtained guano cargoes for Auckland from the Seychelles—another type of port and cargo where the windjammer still competes with steam, f’he Pamir and Penang are expected at Auckland early in the new year. These ships are run so close to the financial margin that a serious accident, a dismasting, or even the loss of a suit of sails, may necessitate their sale to the s hipbreaker. Here are some figures quoted by Mr. Derby: A full cargo of 4,500 net tons of Australian grain, at a carriage rate of 30/- a ton, produces a gross freight of £6750. Against this are the expenses of wages £BOO, stores and gear £9OO, canvas £4OO, dues of £l4OO in Australia and £l5OO in England, involving in all a total outlay of about £5OOO, without dry-dock-ing, survey and similar costs. The average annual profit on a windjammer, with fair luck, is about £800; but all repairs detract rapidly from that margin. A full suit of sails would cost £2OOO.

In the case of training ships, the premiums of cadets make things easy: the Abraham Rydberg carries 45 cadets, at a £4O premium a voyage, states MrDerby. But the majority of the windjammers carry- only a few apprentices and an occasional passenger as unpaid personnel. The crews are small, and ill-paid. An ordinary seaman earns £2 a month and a sailmaker o r carpenter £4; the master himself seldom receives more than £2O a month, for what is perhaps the loneliest, and hardest job in all the Seven Seas. Great Men of Sail.

Two men more than any others, and more than all the unreliable vicissitudes of any trade, have helped to keep sail on the deep-sea highways. One is Captain Gustaf Erikson, of Marieliamn, in Finland, the home of squarerig to-day. Three-quarters of the ships of the present grain fleet are owned by him, and he makes them pay by running them uninsured. With him must be bracketed Herr Ferdinand Laeisz, Hamburg, founder in the ’seventies of the famous “Flying P” line

of nitrate carriers. The Great War robbed him of his entire fleet of 14 barques; but afterward he bought many of them back, and still owns the Padua and the Priwall, regarded as the two finest trading square-riggers afloat, since the loss of the Herzogin Cecilie. A fine book, deqling with every aspect of the last days of deep-water sail and illustrated with many wonderful photographs, Mr. Derby’s history is a worthy record of an era that is drawing to an end. Much sentiment has been wasted, much fictitious glamour attached to, the great windships; but there is no doubt that with their disappearance something of beauty will have vanished from the sea — “I often think how sad that time will be “When no wind lifts a sail on any “The Tall Ships Pass,” by W. L. A. Derby; Jonathan Cape, Limited, London ; 25/-.)