VETERANS OF THE SEA.

Wairarapa Age, 19 March 1929, Page 2

VETERANS OF THE SEA.

World’s Oldest Ships SAILER’S DOUBLE CENTURY. IN SERVICE OVER 200 YEARS I Hundreds of old sailing ships, ranging from fifty to nearly eighty years old, are still coasting round the shores, of Britain, mannde by tough sea-dogs. They- are the remnants of the days when, every British ship moved under towering piles of white canvas. There are some really astonishing Caso? of veteran sailing ships which have survived year after year, until it seemed that they would never get beyond work. One of them was the little 25-ton ketch Good Intent,, which actually left ler builders in 1790, over 13.* years ago, and was in active service until a few years -ago. ®he has now 11 retired, ’ 1 and lies on the Avta at Bristol, but she is still perfectly capable of putting to «ea, and is the old est British Bcrviceable vessel. A wonderful record was put up by another wooden ketch, the Bee. which for 126 years journeyed continuously from Southampton to Cowes, Isle of Wight, and back, until withdrawn in 1927. In that time she accomplished something like 40,000 trips. Another coastal veteran, the 40 ton ketch, Jane, built in 1800, is now being used as a lighter on the Avon, and is the world’s oldest vessel still in active employment. She has had an adventurous career. For the whole of the War she was on Government charter in the Bristol Channel, despite German submarines and mines.

1 Among the “old guard’’ of coasting ’ craft are many vesesls which, although not to be classed with such centenar- ’ ians, are of considerable age. These veterans include isuch ships as the schooner Coquette, 78 years old; the ketch Jane and Sarah, 73 years; the ketch Wave, 60 years; the schooner Madbyman, 63 years; the schooner 3 Jane Slade, 58 years, and scores of ’'others. Life on them is as hand as

I I any sea-going can be. ,1 An interesting -sidelight on the age 1 ’of ships is obtained from, the well- ‘ known Thames barges. Few would 1 {imagine that they attain great age, - yet some are handilinig pig lead though . 1 iover sixty years old. But, of course, (these have generally been reconstructed. Unless this is done they are very J olid and dangerous after forty or flit? ■ years of work. J| The oldest sailing ship in the world .’still afloat is the barque Constance, ■ owned by the Danes, and built in 1723. ’ She was working steadily right up to - the War and is now in use as a training iship at Copenhagen. One wonders 3 {whether the steamers and motor-ships - 1 which now rule the roost in marine 2'affairs will produce such veterans as 2 have sprung from the <era? of -sails. AT. . (present, they have not been in utse long 'enough for any opinion to be formed. | Respectable ages have already been attained by steamships. The oldest .(Dutch ship, the -steamer Caledonia,, .jbuilt in England in 1874, was’ recently .'sold for breaking up. She was then. 54 .’years of -age. At the end. of 1927, a .{-diminutive steamer, the Glengarry, of .1124 tons, met a similar fate. For S 3 ’. years she had plied among the stormy seas surrounding the Western Isles of . Scotland, and. was then- the oldest t!steamship afloat. That honour then . fell to a Weymouth pleasure steamer, the Premier, 129 toixs, which wa§; '-launched in 1846. The first iron collier, launched in 1862, was also in service in 11927. _______