GREAT OCEAN RACE

Evening Star, Issue 21073, 9 April 1932, Page 2

GREAT OCEAN RACE

EIGHTEEN WHEAT SHIPS THE DEEP SEA " SAILERS " No longer do ships sail out of Australian ports to the strains of ‘ Rio Grande,’ ‘Tom’s Gone to Hilo,’ or any of the old chanties. Nearly a score of deep-ssa sailing ships arc leaving South Australian ports this season to race round the world with wheat, hut not one of them is under the British Flag, says the Sydney ‘Daily Telegraph.’

The world’s greatest ocean race is now on, but all tho racers arc Finnish or Scandinavian vessels. Of the eighteen in it this season fifteen are under tho Finnish flag, two are Swedish, and one is a Dane.

From a string of little ports along the gulfs they sail with wheat for Europe. All of them take the Cape Horn way, and anything from 90 to 150 days after they have sailed they turn up at Falmouth for orders, or at Queenstown, Ireland, if the wind is not fair for Falmouth. It is the last trade left in the world in which deep-sea sailers play a leading part, with the exception of the nitrate trade from the west coast of South America. And even on the west coast the big German sailers who used to run regularly with nitrates are going out of the game. South Australian wheat is still carried largely by sailers, and there is no sign of falling off. The eighteen sailers loading this season will carry to Europe over 75,000 tons, or more than 3,000,000 dollars’ worth. One vessel, the fourmasted barque Parma, has loaded 5,300 tons at Port Broughton. Her rate of freight is 31s 6d a ton, or £11,025 lor the voyage. There is a good profit at this, for all these sailers arc cheaply run. As the vessels leave at times spread over two months or so, the races are against the calendar. The one that sails in the least time from South Australia to Falmouth or Queenstown, as the case may be, is the winner. The vessels in the race this year, with the ports of departure, are:— Already sailed: Abraham Bydherg, Swedish, Wallaroo, January 13; Hcrzogin Cccilie, Finnish, Port Augusta, February 9; Lawhill. Finnish, Port Victoria, February 27; Mozart. Finnish, Port Victoria, March 2; Viking, Danish, Port Victoria, February 9; Penang, Finnish. Adelaide, March 3; Pommern, Finnish, Port Germain, February 21: Winterhude, Finnish. Port Pirie, February 15; Ponape, Finnish, Port Lincoln, February 24. Loading or to load: Parma, Finnish, Port Broughton : Favell, Finnish, Port Adelaide; Olivebank, Finnish, Port Germain; C. B. Pedersen, Swedish, Port Victoria: Archibald Bussell, Finnish, Wallaroo; Pamir, Finnish, "Wallaroo: Grace Harwar, Finnish, Port Lincoln; Hougomont. Finnish. Port Lincoln; Melbourne, Finnish, Port Victoria. When an American from Martha’s Vineyard told the Customs officials in Sydney that he was on his way to Port Broughton to ship on the Parma, they asked if this place was in Australia. Very few _ citizens of the Commonwealth outside South Australia have over heard of these little ports where the hig sailers load thousands of tons of bag wheat for tho Horn run : but the names are familiar enough to dwellers in the Aland Islands, away up in the Baltic, whore Maricliamu is the homo port of tho Finnish vessels:. It is a very open race this year. The Parma, which lias never raced before, came out from Hamburg in eightyfour days ami made the run from the

English Channel in seventy-eight days. If she can do that, or anything very near it, to Falmouth, she will win. Ninety days or more is the usual best. The Horzogin Cecilie has won before, and she is a good sailor. So is the Viking, and so are several others which all have a chance. And so the last great fleet of deep-sea sailers is setting out to raco round tho world. Till this year there were three fleets left. But the sailers belonging to the Alaska Packers’ Company are laid up at Alameda, in San Francisco Bay, and will never plough tho North Pacific again. And Laessens, of Hamburg, once owners of tho Parma, are selling their fine fleet of big barques. Yet still Eriescn, of Mariehamn, keeps his fleet of deep-sea sailers, which are tho backbone of the wheat-laden “Capo Horners.”