VETERAN OF THE SEA

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6672, 27 July 1928, Page 9

VETERAN OF THE SEA

OLDEST CAPTAIN APLOAT, OVER SIXTY YEARS AT WHEEL. TONONTO, June 20. Lake Ontario claims the oldest active ship’s captain afloat. Ho is Captain Oliver Patcnuude, commander of the cargo vessel City of Kingston. He is 82 years old. He brought his ship into Toronto Harbour the other morning at dawn. A reporter shortly afterwards found him in his cabin busy over manifests and invoices. He complained not of the burden, of years but of the burden of publicity. In every port he was asked for his memoirs when all he -wanted was his sailing orders.

“Como back in the fall,” the old skipper said, “at the close of haviga*tion and I will give you a page full.” As a matter of fact ho could give volumes full. He took* the first vessel from Montreal to Port William. Before that ho was on the St, Lawrence, the gulf and the ocean. Compared with him the veteran Captain J. E. Bernier, of Arctic fame, is only a young cabin boy. Ho was a veteran when Canada launched its ship of state at Confederation. ■- ■■ . Captain Patenaudc has seen epochal changes in lake navigation.. He has been towed by ropes up canals that were only highway ditches. Ho has groped his way under sail into dark mouths of bygone river ports to crudely timbered landing places. Ho has lived to ,go boldly under steam in the full blaze of the most modern light-; houses to huge concrete piers. He has seen many a blow that made the lakes

worse than the oceans. Onco in tha Arabian Sea he weathered a hundredmile an hour gale, but in 63 years at the wheel he has never had a shipwreck. Onco he was blown asboro on Lake Superior; but ho got off unharmed and unaided. This old man of the set has ten surviving children and 42 grandchildren, but ho'never sits in the chimney nook and gives them a chance to bring him slippers or gruel. He can climb/a ladder/ dance art hornpipe, 0 r sing a sea chanty. He-can-read without glasses. Once fbr flte'. weeks ho suffered an attack of typhoid but defied the ship’s doctor and kept to the bridge throughout;/; Despite* his 82- years Captain Patcrnaude still Las-the reputation of being the best/ navigator in the Canada jlteamslUp Cdnipafty’s service. Once ho used to put in- the supplies for tho lighthouses •' oh", the lakes. Ho know’s their overy bay and cove, reef and promonttoy.