"GREAT DAYS OF SAIL."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19892, 10 March 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

"GREAT DAYS OF SAIL."

A CLIPPER CAPTAIN.

BY KOTARE.

In "The Great Days of Sail," published last year by Captain Shewan, perhaps the last survivor of the famous band of clipper captains who raced across the world the first and choicest of the China tea crop, the swan-song is sung of the crowning era of the sailing ship. For one romantic quarter of a century the clippcis swSpt the sea, and the long and glorious record from the dawn of history of ships that compelled the winds of heaven to their service ended in one supreme efflorescence of beauty and triumph. lhe clippers were the product of that demand for speed which in the end led to (heir replacement by the steam-driven ship. But while they lasted they gave to seatransport a grace and a glory it had never known and never could know again. Ihe romance of the sea may not have passed. McAndrew speaks with withering contempt of a foppish passenger who dared to suggest that steam has spoiled the romance of the sea. , , . Damned ijjit. I'd been doon that morn to see what ailed the throws, Manholin', on my back—the cranks three inches off my nose. That was romance enough for him, and he longs for a man like Robbie Burns to sing the song of steam. It may be so; but something passed with the great days of sail that we shall never capture again. The stern fight of man against the elements for one thing, of man the conqueror fronting nature and using even her hate and fury to bring him on his way to the haven where he would be. And grace and beauty for another—for the great ship under full sail was the most beautiful thing on land or sea. The Ships. I looked with them toward the dimness; there . . ~. Gleamed like a spirit striding out of night A full-rigged ship unutterably, fair. Her masts like trees in winter frostybright. Foam trembled at her bows like wisps of wool; She trembled as she towed,, I had not dreamed That work of man could be bo beautiful, _ In its own presence and in what it seemed. That was Masefield's impression of a storm-beaten clipper, her sails blown to ribbons, docilely following a tug up the quiet reaches of a river. Beauty and regret both flood his heart. In another famous passage he sees only the glory and the splendour. " When I saw her first there was a smoke of mist about her as high as her foreyard. Her topsails and flying kites had a faint glow upon them where the dawn caught them. Then the mist rolled away from her, so that we could see her hull and the glimmer of the red sidelight as it was hoisted inboard. She was rolling slightly, tracing an arc against the heaven, and as I watched her the glow upon her deepened, till every sail she wore burned rosily like an opal turned to tho sun, like a fiery jewel. She was radiant, she was of an immortal boauty, that swaying, delicate clipper. Coming as she came, out of the mist into the dawn, she was like a spirit, like an intellectual presence. She was alive with a more than mortal life. One thought she would speak in some strange language or break into a music which would express the sea and that great flower of the sky." Captain Shewan. Captain Shewan commanded a clipper when he was only twenty-three. The best of his life was spent among the great clippers. He saw the China ships superseded by the new generation of fliers that raced home the Southern wool. At 78 he was persuaded to put iiiis memories upon paper. Last year his book was published and in December he made his last landfalj. Many a book those last few years has told the epic of the clippers. Lubbock and a host of others have sung the praises of the great days of sail, gleaning the old stories before they had faded into the darkness. Fine books many of them are. But the old captain's story has moved mo as none of the others have power to do. For one thing his personality throbs in every page. Ho sees things always from his bridge. He is forthright and dogmatic as an old skipper should be. He knows the things that the landlubber would like to know, and if he sometimes clouds his information with a sudden spray of sea terms his story is very simply and clearly told. It requires no unusual gifts of imagination to place yourself in the row of clippers waiting lor the first of the crop at ij'oochow or Whampoa. J.'ou catch the old excitement of loading. You swing out with him into the Cnina Sea. You are even willing to express an opinion on the route through the Malay Archipelago, and to condemn roundly the infrequent mariners that always played safe. And there is your rival popping up unexpectedly a.i widely-sundered points on the long sea-route. And there is the thrill when the narrow waters are reached at last and the weatherbeaten clipper makes her final mighty effort up tlie Channel and into the Thames. Have we beaten our rivals'/ Have we won the premium bestowed on the first ship homo ? If you can read Captain Shewan's vivid story and not be swept by these emotions you have much more possession of your soul than I can boast. The very artlessness of the story is its strongest appeal. Stormalotig. Our captain has a fine sense of character. He draws some singularly vivid pictures of men he used to know. There is the old Captain Willis, immortalised in sea-song as Stormalong. This, ho reports, was the exploit that finally fixed the name upon him. He, with a number of other ships, was weather-bound in the Thames. A succession of westerly gales kept them all at their moorings. But John Willis refused to admit that the Channel could not be negotiated in spite of all the westerlies that over blew. By magnificent seamanship he beat bis way down Channel, struck across the Atlantic to Demarara, took on his cargo of sugar, came rushing home to find the westerlies still blowing and some of the ships he had left still waiting for them to moderate. Captain Shewan frankly disbelieves the claims of the Cutty Sark to a day's run of 363 miles, and a week's run of 2180 miles. Still less does he accept the records claimed for the American clippers of over 420 miles reeled off in the one day. Ho says bluntly that the sailing ship has never been built that could get anywhere near the 4CO mark. Apparency he was wrong about tho Cuttv Sark. In the very issue of the London papers that contain the news of Captain Shewan's death the captain of the Cutty Sark publishes the exact figures from the famous clipper's log-books, and offers them for inspection. Whether he is always right or not does not matter: those who still cherish tender memories of the great days of saiil and those who want to know how a clipper ship was run will find Captain Shewan a fascinating and thoroughly capable guide.