SAILS OF OTHER DAYS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20254, 14 May 1929, Page 6

SAILS OF OTHER DAYS.

WAITEMATA "LANDMARK.' V REWA AND HEIR CARETAKER, LINKS WITH ROMANTIC PAST, Ahoy! Four men in an eight loot dinghy, having made an error of' judgment about the strength of the spring tide ebb and the extent of the jobble raised by the southwest breeze, clung to an old rope on the lee side of the barque Rewa in the stream and shouted " Hoy " because at the moment a jacob's ladder down the lee side seemed much preferable to the gangway on the windward side. But there was no chance of the cockleshell attracting the attention of the ship's one-man crew. The breeze drummed through the lofty rigging. It was the soul of a ship in chains singing its own dirge, a dirge filled with memories of the brave and spacious days, memories of gales off the Pitch of the Horn, of hurricane tropic nights, of the chanties that once farewelled her when she took her departure from the big company of sailers in Iqueque or Callao. Seven years, nearly, the old Rewa has swung at her moorings in the Waitemata. For seven years her running gear has been stowed, and for seven years the lashings of her stout steel standing gear have been weathering to decay. Some of the steel yards have been taken down. But the ship can still find her voice in what remains. From deck to truck the main roast is 176 ft. and there -is plenty of room for the wind to make play. Wind in the Rigging. There is a whistling note, a moaning note, and the note of the wild blue water. Different is the voice of the wind through the bare boughs of a big tree. Here, despite decay, there is firm resistance, and although it is not enough to give sway to the heavy hull, it is sufficient to remind one of the stern life that was lived in sail upon the deep water.

A little dog whimpered a welcome over the bulwarks, although the visitors were strangers,'as they came up the gangway, and only then the old sailor, who is the crew made them welcome when once assured that the permission of the owners was cai*ried. A strange life is that of the aged sailmaker, who with his little dog is caretaker of the ship. He sailed on her on her last voyage seven,years ago and, retained as caretaker, has lived on her ever since with only his dog and books for company. He spent a lifetime in sail. For 40 years he had travelled the world before he joined the Rewa. Twenty-five of those years were spent with one ijaptain in three ships of the "Glen" line. Sailmakers were sailmakers and men of importance when he was young. " Captains sought us out and offered us jobs," said he. " When steam started to come up and sail to go down, we had to go cap in hand to look for jobs that became scarcer." v The Catting of the Royal. He almost shouted his words. The wind was in the rigging and habit had taught him to talk above it. Then came a story without a date which <yie may expect from a saiimaker. .Most captains, it appears, considered they knew best how a sail should be cut, and the day inevitably came when a new captain set; about' instructing this saiimaker howl to make a heavy weather royal. » ■ But the royal was made as!"the craftsman knew how to make it. "He had said he would pay for it If it not perfect. At last it was bent and the captain spent some hours in the Tigging looking for a fault. It was wifhout a flaw and thereafter saiimaker . and captain lived amicably, each careftdjy allowing the other to be master of his own job. Forty years in sail. To, China and Japan in the tea clippers, sttfe -clippers that carried the canvas and sailmakers who knew the essence of their trade. To the West Coast, which is none other than the west coast of South America, where nitrates used to be the trade for the sailers. To India, to the Atlantic seaboards and down to the Gold Coast and the Cape and Buenos Aires and Bio. Forty long years of romantic roaming, although a saiimaker is not given to seeing romance in his calling. And a wreck—the Sofala.

Ship Without a Husband. At Jong last the Rewa, busy once more because tho war liad shortened tonnage and gave sail its last boom. With railway sleepers and coal from Newcastle she reached Auckland, and after discharging went to moorings off Birkenhead, there to remain except for one visit to the dock when the possibility of a sale was in the wind. But no one bought her, and back at the moorings she continues to lie. Nothing demands for its maintenance more constant attention than a ship. Nothing looks so pathetic throngh neglect. The Rewa is a pathetic sight, although one is assured that she is sound in the hull. She had three and a-half inches of water in her bilge when she came, out of dock over four years ago, and three and a-half inches she has to-day, although she has never been pumped. But mussels cluster thickly to the waterline, above is a mass of rust. The deck and deck-houses have not seen paint since she last sailed, and the result is a melancholy picture. The standing rigging is still tar black, but lashings are bursting at the bends. Most steelwork is flakinpr away through rusty disuse. Quarters of tho caretaker suffer from rainwater leaking through overhead. Two things are good—the white figurehead and the bell.

The Imperishable Bell. - A visitor rang the time and the loud, strong i vibrations sounded through the ship. He tried to picture the watch turning out and a new figure at the wheel and the vast spread of canvas above. But the picture would not come. One lonely figure, that of an aged man, was the only figure on the long, wide wilderness of a deck. And although his floating home js so near to Auckland's busy wharves he still speaks of "going to Auckland" occasionally. Birkenhead is his "port" because the little craft, that is his launch is no safe boat in a jobble with the engine still. The remains of a wireless aerial hang at the mastheads, but there is no means of hearing the radio station ashore. "What do I want with a wireless set and entertainment?" says the old sailor. "I once had a gramophone but I practically gave it away." A strange life. An old sailor and an old ship, within a busy port, yet out of it, dreaming together of the days of their lusty youth. And down in the saillockers acres of well-sewn canvas, including maybe the famous royal, slowly perishing, because no one, not even in .England, cared to buy it. The one enduring thing is the bell. Perhaps old sailors on dark nights may hear it tolling the passing of a ship, ofan age and of a generation of seamen.