THE DAYS OF SAIL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21542, 14 January 1932, Page 12

THE DAYS OF SAIL

—- . FAMOUS CLIPPER’S CAREER JOSEPH CONRAD AS MATE. A model of the Torrens, the last fullrigged composite passenger clipper ever launched, has recently been built ‘by Messrs Sir James Laing and Sons, Limited, Sunderland, and lias been lent tu tiie Sunderland Museum for a time by the chairman, Sir James Marr, who had it built. The Torrens was built for the Australian trade, to the order of Captain H. li. Angel, of Bridport, who died in 1023, whq was one of the owners. She was laid down by James Laing at the Deptford Yard, Sunderland, in January, and launched in October, 1875., Her dimensions were; —Length, 221,1 feet; breadth, 38.1 feet; depth, 21.5. feet; registered tonnage, 1276. Her keel, stem, and sternpost were of the finest American elm; floors, beams, knees, stringers, and keelsons of wrought iron; shell planking and decks of East India teak, copper fastened, braced with wrought iron diagonals, and sheathed with yellow metal from keel to waterline. Her cost complete, ready for sea, was £27,257. For 15 years Captain Angel sailed her for the Elder Line, from London to Adelaide, with conspicuous success. The clipper’s outstanding points were extraordinary speed in light airs and the ability to run before the wind in the “ roaring forties ” at 300 to 350 miles a day without shipping a sea. She broke the record on the great trade route to Australia in 64 days. Her wonderful buoyancy and steadiness in big following seas, as much as her speed in light airs, gained for her an unrivalled reputation as a passenger clipper. She was rigged after the Cutty Sark. Though her fines differed, she was little, if at all, inferior in speed, and in some respects superior to that celebrated China clipper. In 1890 command of the Torrens was 'taken over by Captain W. H. Cope, Op bis first voyage the ship was dismasted in the tropics, re-rigged at Pernambuco, and eventually completed the voyage to Adelaide. It was during this period that Joseph Conrad, the novelist, served as mate —1891 to 1893—before retiring from the sea to follow literature as a profession. He described her as “ a ship of brilliant qualities. Apart from her celebrated good looks, she was a comfortable ship and one of the fastest, and for many years the favourite passenger ship to Adelaide —the wonderful Torrens.” John Galsworthy, the novelist, met Conrad in the Torrens on a voyage from Adelaide to Capetown in 1893. In 1898 the Torrens fouled an iceberg in the South Atlantic, lost her fore-ton-mast, and stove in her bows, but made Port Adelaide without assistance. By 1906 cargo could no longer be obtained in competition with steamers, and- Captain UL R. Angel sold her to an Italian Company for £ISOO. She was broken up at Genoa in 1910. These details are mainly taken from “Land Ho!” by E. C. BowdenSmith, a book mostly devoted to the Tor- , reus, 1