The Last Grain Race
Encyclopedia
The Last Grain Race is a 1956 book by Eric Newby
, a travel writer, about his time spent on the four-masted steel barque Moshulu
during the vessel's last voyage in the Australian grain trade
.
shipped aboard the four-masted Moshulu
as an apprentice. His outbound passage from Europe to Australia was via the Cape of Good Hope
. His return was around Cape Horn
. Moshulu was at the time the largest sailing ship still transporting grain.
for a place on one of his grain ships, having been inspired with tales of the sea by an old family friend, Mr Mountstewart. Much to his surprise, he is accepted by 'Ploddy Gustav', the owner of the largest fleet of square-rigged deep-water sailing vessels in the world at that time.
After fitting himself out with heavy-weather gear, Newby makes his way to Belfast
where Moshulu
is discharging her cargo in York Dock. He meets some of the crew and they take him out on a drinking binge, but not before the second mate has order him 'op the rigging'. As the ship waits in port, he spends his time chipping away at the rust on the ship's hull but also befriends John Sömmarström, the ship's Sailmaker, 58 years old forty-three of which were at sea, who explains all the technicalities of a square rig to the young greenhorn.
The ship has a rough passage through the Irish Sea and ten days out they are passing Gibraltar
. The ship's forecastle
where the crew sleeps is overrun by bugs, including their beds, so they string hammocks (with practical jokers cutting the ropes they hang from). Twenty four days out, the ships picks up the Trade Wind and Moshulu is hit by a tornado. By now the crew are getting desperate for any food different from their staple menu and Newby shares his last can of peaches with another crewman, Kroner.
On the thirty fourth day, Moshulu crosses the equator
and, along with a bottle of Akvavit from the Captain, the new crewmen undergo the Initiation Ceremony - their heads are covered in tar and red lead. It is at this stage that Newby almost kills himself by not attaching his bosun's chair correctly. He also has to undertake horrific jobs like cleaning the heads (the lavatories) and doing backstern - washing up for the twenty occupants of the three forecastles. Tension rises as weather conditions worsen, and Newby finally fights Hermansonn who Newby is able to smash after ten minutes.
Moshulu finally reaches port and the ship is loaded with corn at Port Lincoln
in South Australia
and all the crew go on a bender since they at last receive their measly pay. The ship sails on to Port Victoria
and the crew have to offload the ballast on the outer-ballast grounds, working amidst the stench of two dead dog carcasses that the Belfast stevedore
s had kindly included. The ship finally leaves Australia on 11 March, 1939 and Newby's new job, given to him by the First Mate who dislikes him, is to muck out the pigsties of four large pigs - 'dose brodders of yours'. Moshulu is prepared to meet the Southern Ocean
and Newby at last experiences some real storms as the sea washes over the deck and the crew have to deal with flapping sails perched high up in the rigging. Newby manages to fall off the yard backwards, knocked off by 40 feet (12.2 m) of canvas, but fortunately becomes entangled in the weather rigging 5 feet (1.5 m) below the yard.
The storm finally abates but not before it enters its most impressive phase.
We were cold and wet, and yet too excited to sleep ... watching the seas rearing up astern as high as a three-storeyed house. It was not only their height that was impressive but their length. Between the greatest of them there was a distance that could only be estimated in relation to the ship, as much as four times her entire length, or nearly a quarter of a mile.
Newby goes aloft into the fore rigging:
At this height, 130 feet up, in a wind blowing 70 miles an hour, the noise was an unearthly scream. Above me was the naked topgallant yard and above that again the royal to which I presently climbed ... the high whistle of the wind through the halliards sheaf, and above all the pale blue illimitable sky, cold and serene, made me deeply afraid and conscious of my insignificance.
As they round Cape Horn
, the crew have become bored by the desolation around them and engage in a tug-of-war competition from which Newby emerges victorious. They also kill a pig to celebrate Good Friday and they also spot another four-master - the Passat
- whom they pass which makes Captain Sjögren happy. Having passed Cape Horn and the Falkland Islands
, the crew start to realize they are making a record-breaking passage. The crew are now becoming famished, having to eat 'Buffelo'(boiled salt beef) the whole time cooked by the 'Kock'. However, life becomes easier with the return of the Trades but then Moshulu becomes becalmed. They finally cross the Line and are given a huge rum ration which they find difficult to get through, and spirits are lifted when they think they have caught a shark but it bends the hook. The last pig, Filamon, is slaughtered and the crew eat so much pork that it wreaks havoc with their stomachs .
Hopes of beating Parma's record of 83 days to Falmouth
vanish as they believe the calms north of the line may have been too much for Moshulu. As she approaches Fastnet, the ship is approached by five men in a rowing boat to whom they give presents and they also receive some lobsters from a smack. On June 10, 1939 Moshulu reaches Queenstown
, 91 days from Port Victoria and, as Padua takes 93 days to reach Falmouth, they have won the Last Grain Race. On the 27th of June the ship is warped with difficulty into Queen's Dock, Glasgow. Captain Sjögren, with whom Newby has had a stiffly formal relationship, asks him if he is coming again as he inks in his discharge as Ordinary Seaman, but Newby leaves through the dock gates and never sees Moshulu again.
By the 'thirties, the grain trade from South Australia to Europe was the last enterprise in which square-riggers could engage with any real hope of profit, and then only if the owner had a keen interest in reducing running costs. As Newby notes, Erikson had to pay his crews as little as possible and he could not afford to insure ships, but he also had to maintain them at such a standard that they were rated 100 A1 at Lloyd's. From Newby's own description he was a formidable character:
He was respected and feared as a man over whose eyes no wool could be pulled by the masters whom he employed to sail his ships, and the tremors they felt were passed down to the newest joined apprentice. Of such stuff discipline is made. A now out-moded word, but sailing ships do not stay afloat and make fast passages at the pleasure of a committee of seamen.
On board, Moshulu was captained by Captain Mikael Sjögren, with a crew of twenty-eight, including officers, cook, steward etc. The work of handling large acreages of sail was very heavy, even for men and boys with strong constitutions. Bending a complete set of fair-weather canvas was no easy job, and sail changing was always done four times on a voyage as a ship entered and left the Trade Winds. In one period of twenty-four hours when the Pampero
(a wind off the east coast of South America) was blowing, the port and starboard watches, eight men to a watch, took in, re-set, took and re-set again twenty-eight sails, the heaviest of which weighed 11/2 tons - a total of 112 operations.
Eric Newby
George Eric Newby CBE MC was an English travel author. Newby's best known works include A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, The Last Grain Race, and Round Ireland in Low Gear.-Life:...
, a travel writer, about his time spent on the four-masted steel barque Moshulu
Moshulu
Moshulu is a four-masted steel barque built by William Hamilton on the River Clyde in Scotland in 1904, and currently a floating restaurant docked in Penn's Landing, Philadelphia. -History:...
during the vessel's last voyage in the Australian grain trade
Grain trade
The grain trade refers the local and international trade in cereals and other food grains such as wheat, maize, and rice.-History:The grain trade is probably nearly as old as grain growing, going back the Neolithic Revolution . Wherever there is a scarcity of land The grain trade refers the local...
.
Background to the book
In 1938 the 18 year old NewbyEric Newby
George Eric Newby CBE MC was an English travel author. Newby's best known works include A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, The Last Grain Race, and Round Ireland in Low Gear.-Life:...
shipped aboard the four-masted Moshulu
Moshulu
Moshulu is a four-masted steel barque built by William Hamilton on the River Clyde in Scotland in 1904, and currently a floating restaurant docked in Penn's Landing, Philadelphia. -History:...
as an apprentice. His outbound passage from Europe to Australia was via the Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
. His return was around Cape Horn
Cape Horn
Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...
. Moshulu was at the time the largest sailing ship still transporting grain.
Summary of content
Newby finds out that his advertising agency, The Wurzel Agency, has lost a lucrative cereal account and he decides to write to Gustav Erikson of MariehamnMariehamn
Mariehamn is the capital of Åland, an autonomous territory under Finnish sovereignty. Mariehamn is the seat of the Government and Parliament of Åland, and 40% of the population of Åland live in the city...
for a place on one of his grain ships, having been inspired with tales of the sea by an old family friend, Mr Mountstewart. Much to his surprise, he is accepted by 'Ploddy Gustav', the owner of the largest fleet of square-rigged deep-water sailing vessels in the world at that time.
After fitting himself out with heavy-weather gear, Newby makes his way to Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
where Moshulu
Moshulu
Moshulu is a four-masted steel barque built by William Hamilton on the River Clyde in Scotland in 1904, and currently a floating restaurant docked in Penn's Landing, Philadelphia. -History:...
is discharging her cargo in York Dock. He meets some of the crew and they take him out on a drinking binge, but not before the second mate has order him 'op the rigging'. As the ship waits in port, he spends his time chipping away at the rust on the ship's hull but also befriends John Sömmarström, the ship's Sailmaker, 58 years old forty-three of which were at sea, who explains all the technicalities of a square rig to the young greenhorn.
The ship has a rough passage through the Irish Sea and ten days out they are passing Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
. The ship's forecastle
Forecastle
Forecastle refers to the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters...
where the crew sleeps is overrun by bugs, including their beds, so they string hammocks (with practical jokers cutting the ropes they hang from). Twenty four days out, the ships picks up the Trade Wind and Moshulu is hit by a tornado. By now the crew are getting desperate for any food different from their staple menu and Newby shares his last can of peaches with another crewman, Kroner.
On the thirty fourth day, Moshulu crosses the equator
Equator
An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....
and, along with a bottle of Akvavit from the Captain, the new crewmen undergo the Initiation Ceremony - their heads are covered in tar and red lead. It is at this stage that Newby almost kills himself by not attaching his bosun's chair correctly. He also has to undertake horrific jobs like cleaning the heads (the lavatories) and doing backstern - washing up for the twenty occupants of the three forecastles. Tension rises as weather conditions worsen, and Newby finally fights Hermansonn who Newby is able to smash after ten minutes.
Moshulu finally reaches port and the ship is loaded with corn at Port Lincoln
Port Lincoln, South Australia
- Transport :Port Lincoln is the port for the isolated narrow gauge Eyre Peninsular Railway.There is also a subsidiary port at Proper Bay which may be restored to use for iron ore traffic. The export of iron ore through Port Lincoln has been approved by the South Australian Government. Port...
in South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
and all the crew go on a bender since they at last receive their measly pay. The ship sails on to Port Victoria
Port Victoria, South Australia
Port Victoria is a town on the Spencer Gulf coast of southern Yorke Peninsula. At the 2006 census, Port Victoria had a population of 345.Like many other coastal towns on the peninsula, it has a jetty and used to be a thriving port for the export of grain to England. Its anchorage is sheltered from...
and the crew have to offload the ballast on the outer-ballast grounds, working amidst the stench of two dead dog carcasses that the Belfast stevedore
Stevedore
Stevedore, dockworker, docker, dock labourer, wharfie and longshoreman can have various waterfront-related meanings concerning loading and unloading ships, according to place and country....
s had kindly included. The ship finally leaves Australia on 11 March, 1939 and Newby's new job, given to him by the First Mate who dislikes him, is to muck out the pigsties of four large pigs - 'dose brodders of yours'. Moshulu is prepared to meet the Southern Ocean
Southern Ocean
The Southern Ocean comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60°S latitude and encircling Antarctica. It is usually regarded as the fourth-largest of the five principal oceanic divisions...
and Newby at last experiences some real storms as the sea washes over the deck and the crew have to deal with flapping sails perched high up in the rigging. Newby manages to fall off the yard backwards, knocked off by 40 feet (12.2 m) of canvas, but fortunately becomes entangled in the weather rigging 5 feet (1.5 m) below the yard.
The storm finally abates but not before it enters its most impressive phase.
We were cold and wet, and yet too excited to sleep ... watching the seas rearing up astern as high as a three-storeyed house. It was not only their height that was impressive but their length. Between the greatest of them there was a distance that could only be estimated in relation to the ship, as much as four times her entire length, or nearly a quarter of a mile.
Newby goes aloft into the fore rigging:
At this height, 130 feet up, in a wind blowing 70 miles an hour, the noise was an unearthly scream. Above me was the naked topgallant yard and above that again the royal to which I presently climbed ... the high whistle of the wind through the halliards sheaf, and above all the pale blue illimitable sky, cold and serene, made me deeply afraid and conscious of my insignificance.
As they round Cape Horn
Cape Horn
Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...
, the crew have become bored by the desolation around them and engage in a tug-of-war competition from which Newby emerges victorious. They also kill a pig to celebrate Good Friday and they also spot another four-master - the Passat
Passat (ship)
Passat is a German four-masted steel barque and one of the Flying P-Liners, the famous sailing ships of the German shipping company F. Laeisz. The name "Passat" means trade wind in German. She is one of the last surviving windjammers.-History:...
- whom they pass which makes Captain Sjögren happy. Having passed Cape Horn and the Falkland Islands
Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located about from the coast of mainland South America. The archipelago consists of East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 lesser islands. The capital, Stanley, is on East Falkland...
, the crew start to realize they are making a record-breaking passage. The crew are now becoming famished, having to eat 'Buffelo'(boiled salt beef) the whole time cooked by the 'Kock'. However, life becomes easier with the return of the Trades but then Moshulu becomes becalmed. They finally cross the Line and are given a huge rum ration which they find difficult to get through, and spirits are lifted when they think they have caught a shark but it bends the hook. The last pig, Filamon, is slaughtered and the crew eat so much pork that it wreaks havoc with their stomachs .
Hopes of beating Parma's record of 83 days to Falmouth
Falmouth, Cornwall
Falmouth is a town, civil parish and port on the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It has a total resident population of 21,635.Falmouth is the terminus of the A39, which begins some 200 miles away in Bath, Somerset....
vanish as they believe the calms north of the line may have been too much for Moshulu. As she approaches Fastnet, the ship is approached by five men in a rowing boat to whom they give presents and they also receive some lobsters from a smack. On June 10, 1939 Moshulu reaches Queenstown
Cobh
Cobh is a seaport town on the south coast of County Cork, Ireland. Cobh is on the south side of Great Island in Cork Harbour. Facing the town are Spike Island and Haulbowline Island...
, 91 days from Port Victoria and, as Padua takes 93 days to reach Falmouth, they have won the Last Grain Race. On the 27th of June the ship is warped with difficulty into Queen's Dock, Glasgow. Captain Sjögren, with whom Newby has had a stiffly formal relationship, asks him if he is coming again as he inks in his discharge as Ordinary Seaman, but Newby leaves through the dock gates and never sees Moshulu again.
The Erikson Line
Today steel, square-rigged sailing ships no longer trade the oceans of the world. Gustav Erikson of Mariehamn, Finland was the last man to own a great fleet of sailing ships and Newby relates that he never met any foremast hand who liked 'Ploddy Gustav'. Originally, as a boy of nine, he had gone to sea in a sailing vessel engaged in the North Sea timber trade. At the age of nineteen he got his first command in the North Sea, and after than spent six years in deep-water sail as a mate. From 1902 to 1913 he was master of a number of square-rigged vessels before becoming an owner.By the 'thirties, the grain trade from South Australia to Europe was the last enterprise in which square-riggers could engage with any real hope of profit, and then only if the owner had a keen interest in reducing running costs. As Newby notes, Erikson had to pay his crews as little as possible and he could not afford to insure ships, but he also had to maintain them at such a standard that they were rated 100 A1 at Lloyd's. From Newby's own description he was a formidable character:
He was respected and feared as a man over whose eyes no wool could be pulled by the masters whom he employed to sail his ships, and the tremors they felt were passed down to the newest joined apprentice. Of such stuff discipline is made. A now out-moded word, but sailing ships do not stay afloat and make fast passages at the pleasure of a committee of seamen.
On board, Moshulu was captained by Captain Mikael Sjögren, with a crew of twenty-eight, including officers, cook, steward etc. The work of handling large acreages of sail was very heavy, even for men and boys with strong constitutions. Bending a complete set of fair-weather canvas was no easy job, and sail changing was always done four times on a voyage as a ship entered and left the Trade Winds. In one period of twenty-four hours when the Pampero
Pampero
Pampero may refer to:* The Pampero Winds* Industrias Pampero, C.A., rum distillery in Venezuela...
(a wind off the east coast of South America) was blowing, the port and starboard watches, eight men to a watch, took in, re-set, took and re-set again twenty-eight sails, the heaviest of which weighed 11/2 tons - a total of 112 operations.
External links
- Time in partnership with CNN 'Grain Race' May 4, 2007 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,745620,00.html
- The Guardian 'The enduring magic of Eric Newby' March 14, 2007 http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/03/the_enduring_magic_of_eric_new.html
- British Guild of Travel WritersBritish Guild of Travel WritersThe British Guild of Travel Writers was formed in 1960. It is a membership organisation that admits authors whose work focuses on travel. It also includes among its membership many other professionals who generate travel-related content for print, broadcast and online media...
BGTW Lifetime Achievement Award http://www.bgtw.org/currentawards2.asp?awardsID=8 - Picture of Moshulu http://www.pbase.com/image/40586643
- The Independent 'Eric Newby' October 23, 2006 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20061023/ai_n16799828