VETERANS OF THE SEA

Waipa Post, Volume 38, Issue 2286, 28 March 1929, Page 7

VETERANS OF THE SEA

WORLD'S OLDEST SHIPS

Hundreds of old sailing ships, ranging frotai 50 to nearly 80 years old, are still coasting round the shores of Britain, manned by tough sea dogs. They are the last remnants of the days when every British ship moved under towering piles of white canvas. Therei are some really astonishing cases 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 Gqod Intent, which actually left her builders in 1790, over 138 years ago, and was in active, service until a few years ago. She has now "retired," and lies on the Avon at Bristol, but she is still perfectly capable of putting to sea, and is the oldest British serviceable vessel. A wonderful recojrd 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ketch, the Bee, which for 126 years journeyed continuously from Southampton to Cowes, Isle of Wight, and back, until withdrawn in 1927.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 submarine and mines.

Among the "old guard" of coasting craft are many vessels which, although not to be classed with such centenarians, are of considerable age. These veterans include such ships as the schooner Coquette, 78 years old; the ketch Wave, 60 years; the schooner Madbyman, 63 years; the schooner Jane Slade, 58 years, and scores of others. Life on them, is as hard as any seagoing can be,. An interesting sidelight on the age of ships is obtained from the wellknown Thames barges. Few would imagine that they attain great age, yet some are handling pig lead though ove,r 60 years old. But, of course, these have generally been reconstructed. Unless this is done they are very old and dangerous after 40 or 50 years of work.

The oldest sailing ship in the world still afloat is the barque Constance, owned by the Danes, and built in 1723. Shq was working steadily right up toi the war, and is now in use as a training ..ship at Copenhagen. One wonders whether the steamers and motor ships which now rule the roost

in marine affairs will produce such veterans as have sprung from the era of sails. At present they have not been in use long enough for any opinion to be formed.

Respectable ages have already been attained by steamships. The oildest Dutch ship, the steamer Caledonia, built 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 124 tons, met a similar fate. For 83 years she had piled among the stormy seas surrounding the Western Isles of Scotland, and was then the oldest steamship afloat. That honour then fell to a Weymduth pleasure steamer, the Premier, 129 tons, which was launched in 1852, was also in service in 1927.