OLD SHIPS AND NEW DAYS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 6, 6 July 1940, Page 20

OLD SHIPS AND NEW DAYS

ONE fine' day, my perigrinations took me to a harbour-side wharf, says a writer in the "Sydney Jftlorning Herald." The environs were familiar and I remembered with toleasure the several old buildings, and Jthe nearby hostelry that was the rendezvous of sailormen years ago when t was first mate of a barque that lay ffor a few weeks at this same spot. SNbw there towered majestically above |t one of the most modern greyhounds »f the sea. A shipmate of former times was ! senior officer of this stream-lined ijeauty, and so I found myself following him up the'gangway into the i^reat hull with the recaptured joy of i l boy who sees his first ship. The vestibule, dining-rooms, and lounges left me unmoved. They refembled too much the accommodation jpf a luxurious hotel. I wanted to see (the bridge, the brain centre of this $hass of power and speed. We climbed stairways (although we gjould have gone up by electric lift) to Ithe height of my old ship's t'gallant jyard before we stepped on to that holy of holies. "A bit different keepIng watch up here than on the poop of jfche old barque Dartford," remarked my jjxiend, with a smile. Mention of the barque conjured up Comparisons with the past. I thought is I looked at the gyro pilot, or "Iron MKke," as my companion called the i iutomatic steering mechanism, of two hen on a ship running her easting ijlown, with their full strength and Jfcill tying down to an arc of 20 degrees the lively swinging black flroke in the compass bowl that represented the ship's head. And then I Realised that this liner on which I stood Jiot only speeds on her way truer than tiuman hand can guide her, but also |>lots her track across the oceans. The touch of a switch and a circular glass window on the forepart of the bridge began to revolve at great speed. *'Handy when steaming into rain. It Bheds the water and gives a good clear fiew ahead," I was told tersely. I lookid through the revolving glass, and in ny mind's eye could see an oil-skinned, lea-booted figure sticking like a leech igmnst a six-by-four strip of weather Sloth and peering from under a sou'wester into a rain squall that hissed iviev the sea and beat a tattoo on drumight main topsails. I looked and I jypndered. Here, everything seemed to be labelled "automatic." There was, for instance, the switch for the automatic foghorn. The sight of it made us chuckle over § memory of years ago, when we had §tood under a bulgirig foresail whilst lunning in'on the coast of „Oregon in a lojgflas thick as pea soup. One of us w'&s turning a : bellows handle like fury, showing the other how to coax a long rah-a-h-rah-h-h out of the old pand foghorn, or "Norwegian piano," fes'it.was known in the square riggers. Many a sailor was tempted to consign > the "piano" to. Davy Jones after.. two hours of grinding as no organ grinder had ever ground since the World began. I; looked into a cabinet containing tiumerous little periscopic reflectors luiat will show in an instant the least jglqw.'of fire in any of their particular iconipartments. "If a person even Strikes a match in a hold, you'll know UP,here on the bridge," said my friend. How simple! What would a captain fcfrlong ago have given for it wl\en he brawled on his hands and knees with Some of his crew over wet decks above * cargo of coal somewhere between Newcastle and Chile, feeling for any faeat that would locate a suspected fire fcelow. Not to forget the sprinkler serflce throughout this liner that will

automatically operate when a certain degree of temperature is exceeded. In the chartroom were more'automatics. The log on the wall registers like a speedometer. Hull down and out of sight over the horizon astern is the old hand log and line. No, the young officer who reads the speed and mileage in this air-con-ditioned chartroom will never picture an antecessor or a hail-swept poop casting the drag over a teak taff rail into a swirling wake leading up and over a mountainous "easting" comber. He won't shout "Turn!" to the sailor with the sandglass held ready in the glow of the binnacle as the white rag marking the end of the waste line goes over the rail. Nor will he feel the thrill as each succeeding knot comes away from the handreel held high above a sailor's head in the darkness a few feet away. Neither will he brace his feet against a stanchion and hold hard to the line when "Stop!" is called by the holder of the sand glass and he reads the full fifteen knots his barque is racing her easting down. There was, of course, an automatic depth-finder. Not only does this give the depth at the instant, but it also charts the hills and valleys of the ocean bed as the ship passes over them. Our reminiscences jumped back again across the years. We recalled a foggy day off the coast of New Zealand. Under a towering mass of canvas, our ship with main yards aback, rose and fell, rose and fell, whilst we mortals took the 281b deep-sea lead to the fo'c'sle head, and "armed" with soap the slot that would strike the ocean bed and claim a sample. The end