Byrd’s Skipper

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 438, 21 August 1928, Page 13

Byrd’s Skipper

Adventurous Life WENT TO SEA AT 13 After sailing for 31 years. Captain Fred C. Melvilie expects "to start his career as a seaman” when he puts out from New York as master of the Samson, base ship for Commander Richard F. Byrd’s South Pole expedition. Captain Melville was 44 years old on August 17 last. His trip on the Samson will carry him into Polar waters for the first time. Much of his life at sea was spent in the torrid zone. When a boy of 13 he was in ill-health and his father paid his passage on a ship sailing out of Boston Harbour for Porto Rico. “After that I set out on my own as a deck boy,” he declared. “No, I didn’t exactly come from a seafaring family, but about one of us out of every generation has been at sea,” he added. Heman Melville, the author of "Moby Dick,” was his father’s first cousin. Three times around the world before he was 20, Fred Melville struck his first hurrican while in the Gulf of Mexico in his first year at sea. Later the same barque, with Melville in the crew, was stranded on a calm sea for months, while the supplies ran low as she limped slowly toward port. The longest period he ever spent on the open sea was on the Lorraine, running from Rangoon, India, to Rio de Janeiro, when the ship was 167 days from port to port.” Hair Turned Grey In 1918 the Mannie Swan, Captain Melville’s first command, was stranded in a calm and was 115 davs coming from South Africa to New York. While he was a skipper on this ship from 1916 to 1920 the captain’s hair turned prematurely grey, “dodging the mines in war years,” he explained. Captain Melville is of medium height, and while he does not appear to be heavily built, he weighs over 13 stone. While in Largo, Africa, in 1917, a group on board the Mannie Swan mutinied. “There was no American consul in port, he explained, so I went to the British consul, but he had no real authority to help me. 1 put the men in irons, and finally the trouble was settled. “But on the trip back our rations ran low. Malaria and beri-beri appeared on board, and when a navy tug met us at Patchogue to tow us to New York, only two of the crew and the cook were able to report on deck. I was sick myself, but I brought the Mannie Swan back, and every one of the 12 men in my crew lived to be paid oH.” Captain Melville in his experience has never seen a burial at sea nor been shipwrecked. Lynn, Massachusetts, where his wife, a daughter 17, a son nine and another daughter seven, live, is Captain Melville’s home town, and Boston is his home port. He obtained his first master’s licence 23 years ago, but it was not until 1916 that he received his first command —on the Mannie Swan. During his two years “in steam,” 19141916, he wa3 a first, second and third officer. Since 1920 he has been in command of schooners running between Boston and the West Indies, and has served as skipper for Crowell and Thurlow and John S. Emory and Co. of Boston. His last command was the James E. Newsom. While still an able-bodied seaman before the mast he sailed under the British and Norwegian, as well as the American, flag.