WAY FOR A SAILER!

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 437, 7 November 1947, Page 17

WAY FOR A SAILER!

New Seafaring Series from ZB's

VERY country set in encircling seas owes its human history to ships. The early Polynesians carried history to New Zealand in their canoes; the white pioneers brought more, and in ships two generations of their descendants have exported it. There is, then, no family in New Zealand which has not some connection with the sea. So that the younger generation may have a better idea of the great part ocean navigation has played in shaping men’s lives Francis

M. Renner, of Wellington, will start next Monday, November 10, a jes of recorded talks fro 1ZB under the general title Windjammer. These sessions, which will be heard on Mondays and Wednesdays at 5.0 p.m., will last for several months. Windjammer: will begin at 2ZB on WNovember 17, at 3ZB on November 24, and at 4ZB on December 1. The ground to be covered will be the development of _ sailing ships since about 1840, with factual anecdotes about tea clippers, the Western Ocean packets, the Downeasters, the cargo-carriers of the early 20th Century, the Colonial clippers, and the nitrate ships, of which the Pamir, now

bound for London round Cape Horn, is one. : Each episode will describe some particular vessel, with stories about the famous skippers who were responsible for wresting the speed riband of the seas from the Americans, who at one stage held the supremacy in sail. The races between the Thermopylae and _ the Cutty Sark, most famous of the China clippers, will be included, and there will, as well, be descriptions of many famous feats of seamanship,.of mutinies, and other adventures on the high seas, and of the hardships endured by the crews of the old whaling ships. When he was a boy Francis Renner left Wellington as a member of the crew of the three-masted barque Antiope, which, on her maiden voyage, made a remarkable run from Liverpool to Melbourne in 61 day He joined when the Antiope was under the command of Captain James Broardhouse, who had his wife, 'son and daughter with him, for a trip to Rotterdam, via Cape

Horn. After that he came ashore and was in business for 20 years. Early in the recent war Renner joined the crew of the Pamir, doing six voyages in her up and down the Pacific. He became bosun’s mate, bosun and finally third officer. Now he is in business in Wellington again. He is not new to the microphone, for he has given several talks on the sea for the National stations, and has written two plays around seafaring which have been broadcast. During the recent war he wrote radio scripts for the American Office of War Information onthe Pamir and her history.