EPIC OF THE SEA

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 35, 9 August 1930, Page 21

EPIC OF THE SEA

A JOURNALIST BEFORE THE MAST

"By Way of Cape Horn." By A. J. Villiers. London: Geoffrey. Bles. Mr. Villi'ers, a young Australian journalist with a passion for the sea, had already made ono voyage round the Cape of Good Hope before the mast in the Finnish ship Herzogin Cecilie. He had also been down to the Antarctic in a whale-factory ship, and beforo that had served as a, sailor in the barque Eothesay Bay, then in the intercolonial trade. But all this did not quito satisfy his. craving for life afloat, hard as he had found it. Besides, he realised that it can now be but a few years, possibly no more than ten, when the last big sailing vessel engaged in trade will have left the seas for good, either gone down o* finishing up as a hulk. Therefore he took advantage of the Finnish fullrigged ship Grace Harwar being in Australia seeking a wheat cargo to sign on her articles as A.B. So he put to sea again, and this time for Falmouth for orders, but by way of Cape Horn. The Grace Harwar was a steel vessel of 1565 tons net, built at Port Glasgow in 1889 for London owners, and was engaged in various trades, the West Coast of South America among them, long before passing under the flag of Finland. When Mr. Villiers joined her she had reached Australia from a very long voyage, sailing first from Swansea, Wales, to Luderitz Bay, in what was formerly German South-West Africa; from there to a guano island off. the coast of Peru, via the Cape of Good Hope, into the "brave west winds" again and to the south of Xew Zealand,' and from tho island through the Panama Canal*to Wellington, North Carolina, to discharge, thence out to Australia. *in . ballast, and once move round the Cape of Good Hope. i

Mr. Yilliers's experience of the Grace Harwar began fit Wallaroo, South Australia, where tho vessel loaded wheat for Falmouth for orders. The passage lasted 138 days, and it was as bitter and hard as it was long, and it had, too, its tragic incidents. "Wo went. to sea (ho writes) with thirteen hands before the mast, and according to the owner that was one too many.'-' As it happened -the Grace Harwar had. but eleven hands before the mast ere.she rounded the Horn. But the thirteen were her original complement when she left Wallaroo. Six of the fo'c's'le hands were rated able seamen,, and the rest were boys, their averago age being 19, and three of them had never been to sea before they signed on —thirteen, men (if so they could all.be described) in a vessel that had carricdas many apprentices' as well as a full complement of able seamen when she was under the British flag. . Now the Grace Harwar sailed out of Spencer's Gulf 18th May, 1929, and it was blowing hard and continued so to passing the Tasmanian Coast, heading towards New 7eala;ud. The intention was to pass-to the southward of these islands, but the weather was against this course, therefore the ship made to pass through Cook Strait from tho westward. No sooner was she in sight of Mount Egmont than the wind blew from the south as the ship was kept beating about in the Strait for days. Here, top, the compass developed faults and became useless. Rain and mist obscured all sight- of land. Mr. Villiers describes-how, the night becoming clear off the entrance to the harbour of Welton, ; .

We saw" tho' lights of the-Heads distinctly, with the haze of the city lights behind. Wo looked upon the Bcene from the mainyard, where all hands wore making fast a wet arid fighting mains'l, and thought of those thousands of people among those lights on our beam who were going to dances and cinemas and restaurants and bed, and so on, happily content to pass their time In peace and gaiety, with us rushing ou into the night out there, in our full-rigged ship, standing on towards Cape Horn.

The lights, of Wellington were • the last the Grace Harwar sa\y of anything connected with ship or shore for very many days. She was weeks floundering along in high latitudes, often in grave danger of foundering, always abominably wet on.deck and below, and the crew on short commons from the outset- and shorter still . before the dreaded Cape was passed; wet, cold, and hungry, and overworked, day after day. No land was to be'seen, no vessels passed so far south; there was nothing at all but grey; heavy, and ravening'seas, • breaking aboard again and again, only to fall back to renew their onslaughts. Nearly two months of this sort of thing, was experienced before the grim Cape,was passed and Staten Island was abeam.

Mr. Villiers described with obvious accuracy the rough life aboard the Grace Harwar, but he indulges ia none of tho flambuoyant periods of the "fo'e'e'le lawyer," and has nothing but good to say of the skill and conduct of the master of the ship and the officers under him. They were true bluewater sailors, and accustomed to the hard life in the Finnish sailing ships still in commission.

Beference was made in the Press cablegrams at the time to the death of young Ronald Walker, the Australian who signed on with Mr. Villicrs with the idea that both should take a cinematographic record of the voyage and actual life aboard the now disappearing full-rigged ship. Walker was killed when aloft lying over a yard, when the yard above him carried away. Ho seemed to have had some sort of a premonition that he would die at sea, for two years before his.body was consigned to the deep he had written: "Could I but He in the ocean deep, 'Neath the slumbering surges over to sleep." One of the most moving passages in this epic of the sea, and a beautiful piece of literary craftsmanship at that, is Mr. Villiers 'a description of the night vigil of the captain by young Walker's body and the simple solemnity of the funeral nest day when that body slipped from covering of the Finnish flag into the fathomless sea. This is fine writing without striving after effect. Leaking, battered, and befouled with barnacles and seagrass, the Grace Harwar struggled round the Horn, crossing the Lino ninety days out. Off the Azores food ran very low, but a friendly British cargo steamer, responded to signals for assistance, and her master proved a good Samaritan. The Grace Harwar had no wireless, therefore when she could not conveniently get into Falmoutb she was sailed to Queenstown in Ireland,: and there awaited orders. Then, she was towed to Glasgow to discharge,, and so the voyage came to its end —for Mr. Villiera and the rest of the crew who signed off there. ; "By Way of Cape Horn" is a remarkable story, and,, as already stated, is written with considerable literary ability. It bears, the impress of truth in every line. The author's object in taking cinema pictures oJ life on a sailing ship in the conditions of high southern latitudes was technically achieyed but under the severest of conditions, especially of light and humidity. With a note of regret he writes: "I have ben unable to induce any British firm to market the film or even to consider making it in tho form Walker and I intended." Whatever may be the ultimate fate of this unique record in celluloid, Mr. Villiors's written account of this voyage of the Grace Harwar should occupy an honoured position among all works- relating to sailing ships and their business in the turbulent waters »£ the southern soas.