Suggestions

BE THANKFUL, you lusty mariners, that you were born in the age of fore-and-aft rigs and not in the day of squaresails. Romantic these ships were but picture yourself being herded about the deck of one of these ships by the bos'n swinging a memory jogging rope's end, and being called upon to name correctly "240 halyards, tacks, sheets, braces, downhauls, outhauls, inhauls, bruntlines, spillinglines, leach-lines, clewlines, reef tackles, bowlines, guys and clew-garnets" and then be told that there are only nine "ropes" in the ship. Such was the experience of apprentice Frank Wormsley (later Commander Wormsley of the Shackleton expedition to the Antarctic) who, at the age of fifteen, embarked in the ship Wairoa carrying wool from New Zealand to London. The adventurous son of one of the pioneer settlers of that island, it was early decided that his exuberant spirits should be trained to useful pursuits and after a meager schooling the boy was sent to sea. Commander Wormsley's book, First Voyage in a SquareRigged Ship, is the biography of his maiden trip down to and around Cape Horn up through the tropics and the Trades with the final lap through the fog shrouded channel and Thames. Without dealing too much with the technicalities of navigation and sail handling the author gives you a vivid picture of Antarctic gales and ice with tropical squalls to follow and a vivid battle with the mariner's worst enemy—fog.

He draws realistic character pictures of the officers and crew and I only wish he could have devoted as much space to his return voyage as he does to his trip up to England. His scorn of steam will gladden the hearts of all true windjammers, and with such his book should take its place alongside such sea epics as those written by Melville, Conrad, McFee, and Tomlinson.