5 Books That Left an Impression-Book 4

The Last Grain Race

Eric Newby

I love Clipper ships. I always have. We have a room in our house that is primarily decorated by Clipper ship paintings that I call the Clipper room. I like all large sailing vessels of any type. We were fortunate enough to visit Norfolk in 2000 when OpSail stopped there as part of the grand maritime celebration. You could walk the decks of the large sailing vessels from all over the world.

Another large ship experience that I have enjoyed more than once is visiting the Maine Maritime Museum on the banks of the Kennebec River outside Bath, Maine. The shipyard built large schooners, to include the largest schooner, the Wyoming, which was the largest wooden sailing vessel ever built in North America. They have a large, full-size sculpture of the stern and bow of the Wyoming, set apart at the exact length of where they would have been when the ship was being built. It is impressive to see. The wood working shop has a section of hull which is again, amazing to see how thick these ships were and much wood it would have taken to build them.

 I'm not quite sure where I came across the next book on my list of books that made an impression on me. However, as soon as I turned to the first page, I knew I was going to like it. Written by Eric Newby (1919 - 2006) and first published in 1956, it was republished in the U.S. in 1999. Eric Newby was an English travel writer, and this particular story took place early in his life. He was 19 when he enlisted aboard the four masted steel barque, the Moshulu (which means "one who fears nothing"). The ship was originally built in 1904 by William Hamilton and Company (1867 - 2013 as Lithgow Bros.) at Port Glasgow in Scotland and was named the Kurt. When World War I began in 1914, she sailed to Astoria, Oregon where she was laid up for three years. The U.S. seized her in 1917 when the country entered the war and renamed the vessel to the Moshulu. She was sold to Finland in 1935 and we pick up her history in this book in 1938 on what would turn out to be the last trip of the Grain Fleet from Europe to Australia.

What impresses me about this book is the detail. It is very detail oriented so if you have little to no nautical knowledge, it may be a challenge to get through. Since I have a keen interest in sailing vessels of old, I eat up all the nautical terms and items described in the book. Ships of that day could take up to 100 sailors to handle it and they came from many different countries, not to unsimilar to today's cargo and freight ships. Eric Newby uses a lot of the slang of the day. Not only English slang, but Norwegian slang and some Chinese slang. This can make following some of the conversations difficult and takes some re-reading of the sentence to determine what is actually said. To be honest, some of the sentences that were heavy in foreign slang, I just never figured out and had to move on. That aside, the story is amazing. If you ever wondered what it would be like to sail on a vessel for over a year, up to 16 months in most cases, then this is a great read. Eric Newby can craft great visuals and you feel you are on the ship helping with the rigging or shining the brass. It is amazing to learn that in order to tack a ship of that size (change direction of the ship), it takes the entire crew over 45 minutes to an hour to make the change of course. And if you are off duty and trying to catch some sleep, too bad! When you are called on deck to make a tack, you had to go. Even if it was multiple times during your time "off"!

Let me know in the comment section below if you have read this book or if you can recommend a good sailing book to read.