THE LAST OF FOUR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 22, 20 July 1911, Page 4

THE LAST OF FOUR.

Twenty-odd years ago Arthur Sewall, of Bath, in the State of Maine, U.S.A., took it into ths head to build four great wooden sailing ships. And 1 he called theni after four Virginian rivers—the Susquehanna, Rappahannock, Roanoke, and Shenandoah. They were all approximately of 3600 tons; all were squarerigged on each of their four masts; and and each crossed three skysail yards. These big ships l had no pretentions to rank as clippers—they were simply money earning freighters; and as such they were unique among sailing vessels. However, they did not live very long, says a Sydney paper. The Roanoke came to grief while loading chrome ore in New Caledonia. She caught fire, and in spite of the efforts of Captain Amesbury and his men, assisted by those of the Susquehanna, also lying in the harbor, she was totally destroyed. Later on, this vessel also met her doom, going to pieces on a reef in the Coral Sea. Then the Rappahannock was burned and sunk nil Cumberland Bay, Juan Fernandez, four hundred miles off the caost of Chili. Thus, so far, Sewall's account in his four-masters was all on the wrong side of the ledger. And the good folk—experts of other countries—who had jeered at the enterprise, laughed, well content with their own forecasts of misfortune. But the Shenandoah was still left. And to her it was left to retrieve the fortunes of her dead and'gone sisters. No more than they was she a clipper; but she has done her 300 miles over and over again within the twenty-four hours. And for more than twenty years the big ship sailed 1 to and fro upon the Seven Seas, and always with a full hold, coining money for her owner. To those who remember seeing her in Sydney, it may be of interest to learni that her length was 300ft,with a beam of 40ft, and a depth of 20ft. From the water to the maim truck measured 225 ft., and her main yardl was just under 100 ft in length. The diameter of her fore, main, and mizzen masts was 38 inches and their length 90ft. She carried over two acres of canvas on her lofty spars, and stowed under her hatches, 5000 tons of deadweight cargo. She was essentially a "payable proposition," and, as such, confounded the critics who asserted that ships like her could never hold their own with the big steel droghers of Britain,; France and Germany. Perhaps the Shenandoah's best performance was a pas- ' sage of ninety-six days between the Gol- ' dan Gate and Sandy Hook, ■with the us-' ual 5000 tons under hatches. In 1891 she raced five other vessels, like herself, wheat laden and deep, from San Fran-: cisco to Harve, making the passage in 109 days, and beating all her rivals. Very good work this for one of ocean's draught horses with no claim to speed—a freighter pure and simple. Although on one occasion when running away from a Spanish gunboat during the war, she was credited with doing a sprint that averaged fifteen knots per hour. The Shenandoah during her whole career never changed commanders. Captain James Murphy has been in charge of her from the time she began her life until the ending of it as a coal hulk, to be henceforth dragged up and down the American coast at the tail of a tvfe —the inevitable fate that overtakes all faithful servants of the deep, be they famous clippers or the humbler and less speedy fabrics which, like the Shenandoah, have the luck to survive the perils of their stormy existence.