18 BRITISH SEAMANSHIP INFERIOR TO GERMAN?

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 22, 8 January 1907, Page 6

18 BRITISH SEAMANSHIP INFERIOR TO GERMAN?

Mr. Frank T. Bullen, writing in "The Standard,"' says : Among British seamen in days only just, passed away, it was held to be the supreme test of a man’s ability, to handle a ship that he made not one, but several, smart passages to westward around Cape Horn. The explanation is easy, even to landfottk. That southern apex of the great American Continent reaches down into the stormiest ocean on the globa so far, that, while rounding it, a ship comes within five or six hundred miles of the Antartic circle, with all its terrors. And not only must the westward-bound ship face, fresh as she is from the heat of the tropics, the terrible cold of that stern region, but the gales with which she must contend are, in five cases out of six, westerly, that is, as a sailor would say, right in her teeth, And, by the very irony of fate, all these vessels that thus make the outward passage of the Horn arc sailing vessels. The steamers can, and do, pass, owing to their motive power, through the dangerous and tortuous ways of the Magellan Straits, between Tierra del Fuego and the mainland of South America, shortening the voyage by several hundred miles in distance, and avoiding entirely the awful backthrust erf the westerly gales. This easement is absolutely prohibited to the sailing ship. For many years the blue riband of this achievement, the outward-bound passage round the Horn, was held by, the masters of quite small vessels, of two or three hundred tons, barquentines or three-masted schooners belonging to Swansea, and engaged in bringing copper ore from SouthWest American ports. But they have passed away, never to return ; have gone, as it appears that British seamen and seamanship is going altogether under our peculiar system laissez faire. It is of no use blinking the fact, unpleasant reading as it may, nay, it must, be to most of us that, not content with having beaten us in the speed of Atlantic liners, the Germans are proving every day their superiority to us in pure seamanship of the highest type, by our own oft-reiterated admission, that is. in the western passage of the Horn. For the last two years there has been a tremendous series of disasters to British sailing ships essaying to get westward round the Horn, and in two or three cases the masters of these ships have actually turned tail and run their ships right round the , world to their destination, feeling that to get westward was an impossibility. There have also been several cases of disaster to French ships. Meanwhile the painstaking and enterprising Germans of Hamburg, having established a line of huge sailing ships to tho West Coast of South America, for the carriage of nitrate mainly, have been beating all the world’s l’ecords, not merely, for this particular voyage, but for any longer voyages made by sailing ships In fact, so wonderful have been their performances that many old sailors take refuge in utter, disbelief and the dictum that such performances are, must be, impossible. But that consolation is denied those of us who seek for truth, for the facts are too well established to be disbelieved. Entrance and clearance dates cannot lie. Well then ; the German barque Potosi has made eleven consecutive voyages from Hamburg to Valparaiso or Callao, that is the round journey out and home, in the almost incredible average time of five months and

twelve days per voyage. Her shortest voyage was four months and twenty-eight days, her longest five months and twenty-four days. Which means that for the whole of that period of about four years, this vessel, by favour of the wind alone, must have averaged over ten knots per hour, or about a knot more than the average of the ordinary tramp steamer. It is safe to say that nothing in the annals of seafaring has ever even approached such magnificent seamanship as this, for the finest sailing vessel ever built and rigged can do little without a thorough seaman to handle her. Now what does all this mean ? I believe that on the German side it is the natural logical result of the splended training given to German boys intended for sea life, and sending them to sea in ships where they do not merely learn theory but practice, which, again, is the result of the whole-hearted interest taken in the German mercantile marine by the whole nation, headed by the Kaiser. Compared with the absolute apaUiy and neglect shown by the British people to the greatest of all British industries and the one absolute essential of our national existence, this is a very striking object lesson if we would only heed it. Secondly, there is an immense advantage in having a homageneous crew amenable to naval discipline, an advantage no British shipmaster can hope to enjoy Thirdly, and here I am casting no asperions, those German ships are built, rigged, and kept up in the most perfect fashion, and who knows j like a sailor what it is to have gear ; that you can absolutely depend upon j to face any weather ? And lastly we. I must admit, and should admit freely ! that the masters and officers of these | German sailors must show superlative seamanship in their ability to get | out and home while out ships are being battered about trying to get round the Horn.