GLAMOUR OF SAIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20793, 9 February 1931, Page 16

GLAMOUR OF SAIL.

OLIVEBANK -LEAVES F'ORT.

VOYAGE ROUND CAPE HORN*

With top canvas gleaming in the early morning sun and straining to a fresh northerly breeze, the four-masted Finnish barque Olivebank left Port Phillip oil January 17 with about 55,000 bags of Victorian wheat for Europe. The Olivebank had been lying at anchorage fit. more than a year awaiting a cargo, and she was delayed for some days after the cargo _ was shipped until the wind became favourable.

Dawn was breaking when, oS Droiriana, the Euripides, inward bound, passed the Olivebank and signalled "God Speed'' with coloured flags and Morse blasts on the siren.* The sailors cheered as she went by. It was-daylight 'when the heads were reached, and before the pilot , left sails were trimmed and set. Men leaped up the rigging, eager to feel the lift of the wind again, for more than half the crew comprised men who had come to Australia in the Olivebank. They loved her, and were more eager than most seamen to be under sail again. Four upper topsails, three lower topsails, and threo staysails were set against a 12knot northerly breeze. They flapped as the vessel hove to and th» pilot left, with many good wishes for, a safe and speedy voyage. The tug continued with the vessel for five miles 'more before finally casting-off. With her white wings to the wind and "a bone in her mouth," in the picturesque phrase of mariners "in sail," the Olivebank sailed away to the south-east, a glorious picture in the morning sun, on the first "leg" of a voyage around the world. She is making for the south cf New Zealand, then for Cape Horn, and so from south to north of the Atlantic to Queenstown for orders. With no coal to bunker and no stores to buy her men will not tread land again until they go ashore at southern Ireland in the. early glory of an Irish spring. The Olivebank has a good name. All her crew are young, with an average age of about 23 years. All who were still in Melbourne shipped for the homeward voyage, and there was a rush of appHj cants for places in the crew. Several women applied, claiming that they were, willing to work as hard as the men. Captain Lindgren declined fo carry any women in his crew. " There is enoug trouble in a sailing ship already, _ said with a smile, "without buying into more." ' . • J