BARQUE WINTERHUDE

Evening Star, Issue 22573, 15 February 1937, Page 3

BARQUE WINTERHUDE

ARRIVAL IN AUCKLAND Once again tho tall masts and maze of rigging of a sailing ship loomed among tho cranes and smokestacks at Auckland’s wharves. Bearing down in a gentle northerly wind with the rare stateliness of her kind, the Finnish barque Winterhude entered the Auckland Harbour recently, and, furling her sails, was escorted by tug to the King’s wharf to begin the unloading of her 3,000 tours of guano from the Seychelles. Auckland last saw tho Winterhude when she tied tip at the same wharf on the morning of January 28, 1933. Sixty-seven days out from the'Seychelles, which are in the Indian Ocean, 660 miles north-east of the northern most point of Madagascar, the barque made her long journey in weather which was mostly, as Captain F. Holm put it, “too fine.” On the previous occasion she had l completed her passage in 56 days, beating the ship Passat, which had left the islands a week before. This time there was no such picturesque race, and tho ship idled through much calm weather, with occasionally a favouring wind, and bit into a hard easterly between Tasmania and New Zealand 1 . FEW GOOD SAILING DAYS. Leaving Seychelles on December 3, the barque experienced only 15 or 16 of what Captain Holm considered good running days on the whole journey. A favourable wind carried the ship along soon after the islands of New Amsterdam and St. Paul, in the Southern Indian Ocean, were passed. She bore down to about latitude 46, which is approximately that of the extreme south of New Zealand, as she did on her previous trip to the Dominion. It was explained that it was really shorter to make what looks like a wide sweep round tho “ small end ” of the g.obo than to go direct in other latitudes, where the earth is “ fatter.” The weather became “ too, fine ” again, but this side of Tasmania the barque struck a hard easterly. towards the end of January. “It was pretty rough, I suppose,” admitted the captain, “ but not what I would call really rough.” Sixty-seven days at sea and Mauritius the only land sighted between Seychelles and New Zealand! It had not been possible, to charge the radio receiver batteries, and so no wonder the crew eagerly listened to titbits of news from the group of spectators on the wharf, and opened letters from home over a belated breakfast. There are several nationalities aboard l —tho crew of 19 yo.ung men and hoys include Danes, " Britishers, Frenchmen, and Swedes—and their homes are widely scattered. Many of them, however, speak English, although orders are given in a foreign tongue. Captain Holm’s first and second mates are Mr Karl Leman andi Mr L. Saderland respectively. UNDERCANVAS. The barque k undercanvassed for her size, carrying only five sails on a mast. She has had her masts cut down since the war. The ship was in fine trim on her arrival, and there was no sign on deck of her unsavoury cargo.- Rigging and spars were in good order, and the ship as a whole was noticeable for her smartness. Captain Holm said that her best day’s run on the voyage was 250 miles, and her best speed 13 knots. Named after a suburb of Hamburg, the Winterhude was built in Germany and is, owned by Gustav Ericksson, of Finland.’ She has no fixed schedule, travelling where a cargo offers and trading mainly in wheat or phosphate. Her next commission will probably be to load a cargo of grain in South, Australia.