Racing Homeward With the Golden Fleece

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 514, 17 November 1928, Page 17

Racing Homeward With the Golden Fleece

First Wool-Sales of Season Recall Thrilling Days When Clippers Raced to England To Secure Favourable Markets.

(Written for THE SUN by IAN D. COSTER.)

••Earth will not see such ships as those again. *■* — A! ase field. c iH.-i IE race to take the —'ll! colonial wool to the old-world mar- ■ steel freighters of three or four 1 nations swing out front "down-under” ports and plunge through the green'seas to carry home the golden fleece. But the old and stately Argo’s, the dippers of trim bows and press of sail of the "eye-puckered hardcase seamen, silent lean” are gone from the seas and the winds. They made the pace, gloried in the fight and have entered into the story of high romantic things. The colonial clippers have not disappeared entirely. Still occasionally one hears of a race between the survivors of a breed of ships which represented the ultimate achievement in the science of sail. Winds of the seven seas still fill the bellying canvas of a ijreat sailer, wandering lonely as a gull, in a hurrying, scurrying world of steam, smoke and speed. The tramps, even the liners, can never capture the love and admiration o£ seamen and land-lubbers as the dippers have done. Their place is assured. They were lovely things. ■. Gold focussed the attention of the world on Australia and New Zealand and gold brought the ships, crowded with immigrants into the harbours of Sydney and Melbourne. Everyone isays Basil Lubbock) was in a violent hurry to get to the new Eldorado and the boom filled the shipyards of America with orders for large passenger carrying clippers. It was recognised that no ships that sailed the seas could approach the sailing records made by the “Down East” clippers of Maine and Nova Scotia. The only British firm which could compete with the builders of the Yankee soft-wood ships was that of Hall of Aberdeen. The Pioneers Before the days of the wool trade the first ship to shorten the passage between England and Australia was the Marco Polo, a pioneer of the famous Black Ball Line. Her first commander was Captain James Nicol Forbes, better known as “Bully,” who later was skipper of the Lightning, one of the sailers proper to this story* He

Is the original of the “Hell or Melbourne” story. On one of his outward passages, the passengers, scared by the way in which he was carrying on, sent a deputation to him. asking him to shorten sail, but he explained curtl> that it was “Hell or Melbourne.” His reputation for carrying sail rivalled that of the American. Bully Water* tuan, and the same methods are attributed to him, such as padlocking his sheets, and overawing his terrified crew from the break in the poop with a pair of levelled revolvers. In 1852. the Marco Polo made a retard passage to Port Phillip of 68 in four successive days she had covered 1,344 miles, and average of 336 a day, which is as much as some of the inter-colonial steamers do now. On return trip she anchored in the Mersey 76 days out from Melbourne, astounding the owner, the famous James Baines. Between her fore and niain masts a huge strip of canvas announced “The Fastest Ship in the World.” Britain’s Teak Ships The great soft-wood clippers of the “lack Ball and White Star lines began grow water-soaked and strained as soon as the alluvial gold began to diminish. Most of the gold-seekers settled down in the new lands, with 'he result that there was a large and steady increase in the output of wool.

hides, tallow and wheat. The Liverpool emigrant ships were too big for the economical transport of these products and the repair bills were an everincreasing item. The American ships dropped out of the running and ttie British liard-

woods, ships of half the size of the Yankees and built of imperishable teak, continued to carry passengers outward and wool homewards until they were supplanted in their turn by the magnificent iron clippers of the Clyde, Liverpool and Aberdeen . “These were the days when great races home from Australia took place,” says Lubbock. “Not only did ship race against ship, but it was the aim and object of every skipper to get his ship home in time for the first wool sales

in London. And in the wool trade, unlike the custom in the tea trade, the fastest ships were loaded last. The pride of place—that of being the last ship to leave an Australian or New Zealand port, for the sales —• was reserved tor what w_.s considered the fastest ship in tno Crade.” Cutty Sark Iu tlie eighties when the tea trade ! was entirely in the hands of the steamj ers, this pride of place in Sydney was

ENTERING THE STRAIGHT —Going Jo, flying kites set, two clippers, the Ariel < Charles Tlixon, R. 1., as they surged up ; race of 1866. The British public took as ocean greyhounds of the tea and wool i Boat piw kept for Willis’s famous clipper the Cutty Sark, no other ship either of wood or iron being able to rival her passages both out and home in the wool trade. The Cutty Sark’s voyages are far superior to those of any other ship. The average of all her wool passages between 1874 and 1890 comes to only 77 days from port to port. She <

came from the China tea trade to that of antipodean commerce and established such a reputation that the nation refused to let her go the path of old ships. She was berthed at Falmouth some years ago as a permanent memorial to the great days of sail. Her old master, Captain Richard Woodget, :

died In March, of this year aged 82 years. The London wool sales took place in January, February and March, and the lists of the first sales were closed as soon as a sufficient number of cargoes had arrived or had been reported in the Channel. If a captain missed the sales his cargo would be warehoused for perhaps two or three months until the next sales, thus mounting up expenses and involving owners, perhaps, in a fall in the price of the wool. Captains of late-starting, crack ships were often promised substantial cheques if they caught the sales and, truly, it was money well earned. g The old-time stevedore had to load e his ship in accordance with her own :t particular character and the wishes v of her captain. No space was wasted. s Tt is on record that Captain Woodget e used to get 1,000 bales more wool into me Cutty Sark than his predecessor by his habit of spending most of the day in the ship’s hold, e Australia’s sailor poet has somei- thing to say of the difficulties of loads ing wool:

• nrteen knots with royal stunsaiis ana ail and the Taeping, are imagined by the Channel in tUe last lap of a great : much interest in these races by the trades as it did in the Derby and the Race. But the queerest kind of cargo that you’ve got to haul and pull Is Australia’s “staple product”—is her God-abandoned wool. For it’s greasy and it’s stinkin’ an’ them awkward, ugly bales, Must be jammed as close as herrings in a ship afore she sails. One of the chief dangers of a wool cargo was spontaneous combustion.

This caused the end of several fine ships, including the Fiery Star and the Aurora. Green Flyers Of the pioneering lines of the trade, the Aberdeen Clipper or White Star Line holds a foremost place. Its green

clippers were little flyers, and the first of them to make a reputation for speed was the Phoenician. Other fleet ships were the Thermopylae, the Jerusalem, the Queen of Nations, and the Ethiopian Another well-known Aberdeen firm in the run was Duthies. The original William Duthie started his ship building business over 100 years ago, and was one of the first to send ships to Chinchas and Peru for guano. The Brilliant, of 555 tons, became a very popular passenger ship in the time of the gold rush. On her first outward passage she went from London to Melbourne in 87 days and that was about her average. After a dozen years as a passenger ship and wool clipper, she was debased to the guano and nitrate trades, and was finally lost at sea when homeward bound from Callao. Later Duthie built another Brilliant. This Brilliant and Thompson’s Pericles were built alongside one another and launched on the same tide and, both ships being in the Sydney trade, there was great rivalry between them. They were evenly matched. The two captains, Davidson of the Brilliant and Largie of the Pericles usually had a new hat on the result of each passage. Pericles usually won the hat on the outward voyt*ge, because she usually carried pas-

sengers against the other's cargo, but \ Davidson more often than not got his | hat back on the return run. On her maiden run, Brilliant went out to Sydney, without clewing up her j main royals, in the smart time of *8 j days, in the roaring forties she made three consecutive runs of 340. 345. and 338 miles, a performance which Mr. Lubbock believes no iron ship has ever beaten. She was a handsome : ship, painted black with a white underbody, and her appearance earned for j her the title of “Duthie’s yacht.” The Iron Clippers When iron became the chief material for the building of ships the Yankee ship-builders were outdistanced and the British Mercantile Marine became the carrier for the world. Sail flourished for 50 years after the introduction of iron, and up till the late nineties no finer ships had ever been built or sailed than the iron clippers from the Clyde and other British shipyards An increase in size came about. The iron ship succeeded the great Liverpool clippers, and the little Blackwall frigates in the Australian trade, and was as good to look upon as any of her sisters. In the ’sixties, ’seventies and ’eighties, thousands of emigrants were carried out in them to the new lands.

ONE OF THE LAST—Believed to l>e still afloat is the stately Mount Stexcart, which, with her sister ship the Cronidale were the last two vessels to be specially built for the Australian trade. Barclay. Curie and Co., launched her in JSOJ. She was built of steel, finely proportioned. perfectly sparred, and with her dainty sky-saii-yaed at the main, she was a delight to the sailor’s eye. She registered 1 .SOS tons, measured tllfl Sin long and iOft lin wide, and was capable of running up to 300 miles in Si hours. and they took out blood-stock of every description from racehorses to rams. Most of them raced home again with wool. Mr. Lubbock awards the palm for the building of the most perfect iron ships to Barclay, Curie and Co.. who produced the best “Lochs,” including the Lochs Maree, Torridon. Carron, and Broom, and they were responsible for the whole of Carmichael’s splendid fleet and the two "Bens” —Voirlich and Cruachan. Prom the New Zealander’s point of view, one of the most interesting of the iron ships was the Loch Awe. which was afterwards commanded by the notorious driver Bully Martin, who hated passengers, but who in 45 years’ service as a master never cost the underwriters a penny, and lost only two men. The Loch Awe, under Captain Weir, made a record passage from Gravesend to Auckland, her time from pilot to pilot being 69 days. Weir was also a great driver, and the ship came into Auckland with everything washed ofT her decks, including hen coops, spare spars and all her boats. She was carrying emigrants who had a terrible time, having been battened down for days on end.

Loch Torridon The Loch Torridon, a four-masted barque, was described by the naval architect to the Admiralty in 1892 as “perhaps one of the most graceful and elegant models ever launched from the Glasgow yards.” She was a great ship of 2,000 tons, with exceptionally tail masts. Her maiden voyage was a tragic one, master, mate, man at the wheel, sailmaker, and boy being drowned. In 1891 she loaded her first wool cargo at Sydney. Among a fleet of 77 sailing ships which were screwing down wool for the London market, Loch Torridon was looked upon as an outsider, a dark horse with her name to make. She did not get away until late, but she made the best passage of the season and had the honour of beating all the cracks. She passed everything she saw on the road. The old ship survived until 1915, when she foundered near the entrance to the Channel, possibly because of a German submarine. Between 1874 and 1890 the four best wool passages were made by the following ships: —Cutty Sark (72; 73, 72. 76 days each), total 293 days, average 73J. Thermopylae (75. 79, 79. 79), total 312, average 78. Mermerus (78. ; 80, 81, 84), total 323, average 805. Salamis (77, 83, 84, 85), total 329, | average 824-