White Sails Go

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 64, 2 April 1937, Page 15

White Sails Go

World's Dwindling Fleet Of Windjammers!

TXULL down, white to'gallants and "^royals presslng against the gold of sunset, the last of the giaxit windjammers glide by, sileiitly, majestically (writes Wfllis" Lindquist in the Sydney Morning Herald). Their passing is the inevitable birthpains of mechanised commerce and industry. Already the clippers have gone. Old aea chanties such as "Shenandoah," "Blow the Man Down,*" "Billy Boy," "Rio Grande," "Biow Ye Winds in the Morning," and dozens of others have slipped tato the limbo of things forgotten. So also has the old custom of "working off the dead horse" at the end of the flrst month at sea. How long can the 17 or 18 remaining windjammers raise their tall spars and eanvas clouds to the trade winds? Eng- • land, the United States and Canada have ceased to trafflc with them for almost a acore of years. Their ships were either dismantled and left to rot in the Sargasso, or sold to the Finns, who saw the chance of getting a fleet of them for little or nothing. GBACEFUL GRAIN SHIPS. "pRACTICAIXY all the graln ships whlch now ply annually between the countryside ports of Australia and England were once retired, then purchased by the Finnish concern, and refitted for the sea. Most of the available sailing ships in the world have thus been collected' tinder the Finnish flag. When that fleet has gone it will make the inevitable end. It must do so, for the cost of building new ships of this type is out of all proportion to their low earning power What, then, is the outlook for this fleet of grain ships In "1928 these Finnish ships had reached their height— some 25 barques and barquentines, three and four masters every one of them, making the annual passage tp Australia with cargoes of - lumber from Sweden on the downward journey, and Australian wheat on the upward. Since then, each year has left its grim mark. One by one the ships drop from the roll to- become the silent ghosts of a glorious yesterday. DISASTBOUS YEARS. fpo illustrate, take the year 1935. Grace Harwal, last full-rigger of the fleet, became superannuated and was sold for scrap. The three-mast barque Lingard, badly damaged in a collision at sea, was condemned. And 1936 left an even deeper scar. Parma jambed her prow on quay at Glasgow, and had to be scrapped. Ponape proved unprofltable, and was sold to shipbreakers. And then as a final blow, the pride of the fleet, Herzogin Cecilie, a four-mast barque, ran aground in Sewer Mill Cove and broke her back after several Unsuccessful attempts had been made to get her off. There is talk of the L*Avenir being sold as soon as she completes this voyage because of her smaU capacity. And so it goes. The fleet -has been hit in other ways, too. Several years ago the lumber trade ceased altogether, and the ships were obllged to go to Australia in ballast. Like brown rot spreadlng slowly through an apple, the years, each ohe of them, bring new and greater difficulties, keener competition, less proflt, fewer ship3.

How have these ships been able to survive this long? How have they been able to weather present-day competition? What keeps them going? The ships were bought at nominal prices. Tlie sailors on these ships are perhaps the lowest paid in the world, yet, owing to the requirement in Finland and one or two other Scandinavian counthes that seamen preparing for mates' and masters* tickets must spend at least two years of their training period on a sailing vessel, berths on these vessels are at a premium, so much so that an apprentice is required to pay £50 for the privilege of becoming general clean-up man and chore boy. Add to these factors the peculiarlties of the Australian grain trade and the answer is plain. • • * r^RAIN is shipped from smaU country u ports that boast neither of grain elevators nor wharves. Vessels shipping grain from them flnd it necessary to anchor about a mile out and receive their cargo in sacks from small local ketches and barges, a slow, painful prOcess that requires from one month to six weeks, depending upon the rapidity with which the grain is brdught in from the surrounding country. Quite obviously, steamers can 111 afford to take such a time for loading cargo. The short of it is that grain trade with these ports does not offer a choice morsel of traffic for the steamship companies, a fact that takes a good deal of edge off steam competition. SPECULATION. A NOTHER peculiarity of the Australian graln trade has to do with the matter of speculation and warehousing. Since grain is cheapest at harvest time, if it were to be shipped by steam the shipper might flnd it desirable to store it for two or three months in order to obtain better prices. This additional expense of warehousing is avoided by the use of sailing ships," as they arrive at that propitious time when the best prices are available. It is not an unusual happening that the cargo of a sailing ship is sold four or five times while still in transit. Meanwhile, during the long voyage of 90 to 120. days, the ship occupies the positlon of a floating warehouse. • • • TT is this functlon of the sailing vessels that give them their only real advantage over steam, but that advantage, standing Alone, is not suflQclently important to prolong the llfe of the fleet. The successful competition of the grain ships, then, must be laid at the door of these factors already mentioned, their inter-relation and their co-existence, and not to the cheaper freight rates. It is true that transportation by steam is more expensive; nevertheless, the difference is not sufScient to be made point of when the higher insurance rates placed upon sailing ship cargo are taken into account, If the Scandinavian countries do nqt change their training requirements for sea officers (there is-considerable talk of this already), and if the world market does not become flooded with cheap grain, the tall ships of 'the graln fleet might continue to ply between Australia ahd Europe until casualties, another world war, or old age quiet them forever.