PASSING OF THE SAILOR.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XVIII, Issue XVIII, 30 November 1912, Page 10

PASSING OF THE SAILOR.

The New York Tribune, m the course of an article on the disappearance of the sailing-ship, has the following:— "The China trade was probably the first to manifest a direct influence on the sailer. When it was learned that tea lost much of its delicate flavor and quality in the hold of a ship, great encouragement was offered for quicker passage. This fact, and the desire of the ' London tea-merchants to get into the market with the first consignment of the new tea crop, led them to post enormous prizes as an inducement to speed. And the skippers of those days were out to win the money. Seme of the most desperate sea-racing bi'ttles of all times were stubbornly fought out in the long reaches of uncertain water tiown to and up from Good Hope. Working men to the point of exhaustion, and under liberal allowances of grog, night and day, trimming sails to carry the last stitch she could bear in every sort of gale, was the order of the time. And I it was worth a sailor's life to renege. The Solent regattas, the international race from Dover to Heligoland, and the notable recent race across the North Atlantic are such ridiculous little flutters that they aren't worth mentioning when compared to the mental and physical strain, the excitement and hardships endured aboard those famous clipper ships during their stirring races all the way from the China coast to the River Thames. It was the clipper-built Sea Witch, of 907 tons register, carrying 1,100 tons oi? China tea, that in 1842 came in with a record for time of Dassage that caused tremendous jealousy among British skippers. She marked the beginning of the fight for speed. In 1853 the Challenge from Canton to Deal in IQS days flat. Later in the year the English clipper Chrysolite made the passage from Canton to Liverpool in 106 days. On May 30, 1866, the Airel and the Taeping weighed anchor together in Chinese waters, bound for Home. September 6 the Taeping reached London at 9.45 a,nd the Ariel ! at 10.45 p.m.—a difference of only 60 minutes after a race of three months, during which they never sighted each other until they headed into the English Channel. {The two" fastest clippers in 1870 were the Sir Lancelot and the Thermopylae The latter in 24 hours sailed 330 knots (380 statute miles), an average of 16 miles an hour. The former for seven days maintained an average of 300 miles a day. The Thermopylae was the first tea ship home in 1869, making the run in 91 days, and the next year the Sir Lancelot made the passage m 89 days. Later a sailor made the claim that his ship sailed 368 knots (424 miles) in 24 hours (or 18 miles an hour), and that she covered 1,151 miles in three days. And that was some sailing record! In contrast, however, the Lusitama made the 3,600 miles between Liverpool and New York in something over four days. The Suez Canal was opened in 1870. This was probably the first decisive fatal blow to the sail, for immediately the bulk of the Eastern trade was placed with steamship lines. Later the frozen food trade opened with Australia, and that also was given to steamers, since the time of sailing vessels was entirely too slow to handle this traffic satisfactorily. The beginnng of the end of the deep-water sailer, initiated with the opening of the Suez Canal, will be practically completed when the Panama Canal is thrown o, en to traffic. It will enable steamers to make shorter passages, and with greatIv reduced expenses, from one seaboard to the other. It forecasts the time when the perilous waters of the Horn will no longer be negotiated by the sailor, whose hazards and hardships have been mines of romance to writers.''