AWAY FROM IT ALL

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 212, 16 July 1943, Page 4

AWAY FROM IT ALL

Life On A Pacific Windjammer

HE NBS has received from the American Office of War Information a recording of a programme broadcast from the decks of the sailing ship Pamir, in an American West Coast port. This programme, which will be heard from 2YD, Wellington, at 8.5 p.m. on Thursday, July 22, was prepared with the assistance of a New Zealander, F. Martyn Renner, who was in the Pamir’s crew, and included the singing of shanties by the crew, and music played by the U.S. Merchant Marine Cadet School Band, directed by the famous American dance orchestra leader, Ted Weems. We print below an interview with Mr. Renner, together with some official U.S. Office of War Information photographs taken on the occasion of the broadcast. The photographs showing the crew aloft were taken by the New Zealand National Film Unit before the Pamir left New Zealand.

O be a prisoner-of-war was not a new experience to the square rigged, four masted sailing ship Pamir, which was in New Zealand waters when Finland, her owner’s country, became Britain’s enemy during the present war. And to go off on a sailing ship as part of the wartime crew was not a new experience for F. Martyn Renner, a Well- | ington businessman, who helped the Columbia Broadcasting System to tell its listeners something about this unique survival of an earlier shipping age and fashion. The Pamir was captured by the Allies in the last war, and Mr. Renner, during 22 months of that war, was a member of the crew of the clipper Antiope, which was salvaged out of 10 fathoms of water at Bluff and put into the New Zealand-San Francisco trade. So when the Pamir was at an American port some months ago, the Columbia Broadcasting System asked Mr. Renner to help in making up a programme which was broadcast from the barque’s decks. It is a recording of this programme that will be heard from 2YD on Thursday, July 22, at 8.5 p.m, The Pamir was built in 1905 for Laetz’s Flying P Line, companion of the Penang, the Priwall, and others.

Captured by the Allies at Teneriffe, she was allocated to Italy by the terms of Versailles, but Laetz subsequently bought her back, and she resumed her old trade, carrying guano from Chile to Europe. According to Mr. Renner, she is the finest ship of her kind afloat. "The wind doesn’t blow that can harm the Pamir," he said. "On the other hand, she has a great capacity for sailing well

in light winds. Her 6000 tons of dead weight-ship and cargo, that is-will get under way at six knots, when you could walk around the deck with a lighted candle." Explaining why she had electric light bulbs side by side with kerosene lamps in gimbals, Mr. Renner said that the electric lights were on only in the early morning. "Then the blackout comes on-the only thing while you’re at sea

that would remind you of the war. Power comes from a generator driven by a kerosene engine, and there’s a freezer on board to keep meat for the voyage. You get fresh vegetables for about a fortnight, and then tinned stuff, After the blackout comes on, you use the kerosene lamps." Isolated But Exciting Life on a sailing ship, Mr. Renner went on, is a "truly co-operative community; your isolation is more nearly complete than it is in a liner; you are away from the ordinary associations of the modern world, and beyond a little bit of news by Morse, you know-nothing of what is going on elsewhere, "But there are plenty of exciting events in the world of the elementswe saw extraordinary electric storms in the Pacific, and once a thunderstorm passed directly over the ship; it sounded like canvas ripping, with huge detonations; someone saw a fireball that night, too. Another night I was up in the rigging and thére was a brush dis-charge-lI think that’s the name-there was no thunder, but everywhere at once the sky was covered with forked lightning, and I could see the whole outline of the ship below. "We had a near shave once from being run down-lI’d better not tell you where. We were blacked out, of course, and so was the other ship, when she (Continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) ~ appeared on our lee bow, making about 17 knots. We had no chance to do anything, but she missed us. She would have cut us clean in half, needless to say. "Even ‘so, one of the greatest thrills on board « sailing ship is the day when you manage to get half a bucket of rain water, and then you have a wash. That’s a really important occasion." Eyes and Ears To round off his experiences on board, Mr. Renner told his prize story: A sailor who could not read used to receive letters from his wife. On board there was a cabin-boy who could read, and the sailor employed the boy to read _ his wife’s letters out to him. But in case there was anything private in the letters, the sailor always put his fingers in the cabin-boy’s ears!