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Show WMD SfiPSjl f r J A H -r Thrilling Spectacle of a Full-Rigged Ship at Sea. (Prepared by tht National Oeographlo Society. WaahlDRton. O. C.) THE lowly but romantic tramp steamer, whose rusty- Iron sides and smoky stacks are known to every seaport In the world, has largely Joined the sailing sail-ing ship at anchor. Whereas but a third of the world's tonnage was carried In regularly scheduled liners in 1913, now more than three-quarters la transported In this fashion, leaving very little for the independent independ-ent roving steamer or sailing ship. Canadian grain once crossed In tramp steamers. Now a half-dozen regular lines ply the North Atlantic. Norwegian timber and Pacific coast timber, even, are moved on big steadily ousted from every other trade It ever enjoyed, even the carrying car-rying of Peruvian guana When Australian wheat harvests are heavy and steamers are Inclined to ask high freights. because of the difficulty diffi-culty of getting outward cargoea the sailor still has a chance of sneaking an odd cargo here and there. She Is prepared to accept a much lower freight rate than the steamer. She will go to any outlandish out-landish port and register no objection objec-tion at spending six weeks or more at loading. She will discharge her own ballast at her own expense. She does not mind sailing halfway round the world In ballast If only there Is liners following a schedule. Changing economic and social conditions con-ditions are last vestiges of the pioneer pio-neer spirit of the seamen of another an-other day. The seamen themselves are different They want steady work and fixed wages, and they like to ship on steamers with a regular schedule, allowing them to make plans In port Out-of-the-way parts of the world are again becoming the lonely, Isolated Iso-lated spots they were before the day of the great explorers or the era of sailing clippers. The number of ships that round Cape Horn, for Instance, now is fewer and becoming becom-ing steadily fewer. Steamers have no need to go that way. If they are coming from Australia Aus-tralia to Europe, Suez and Good Hope are shorter and kinder routes. If they are bound from or to New Zealand, there Is Panama. If they are outward or homeward bound In he West coast trade, Panama canal, too, Is much more convenient even for the far southern port of Valparaiso. Val-paraiso. In the nnusual event of a steamer passing to the south of the American continent say. on passage from Buenos Aires to Tal-cahuano Tal-cahuano nine times out of ten she wi use the Magellan passage, or, fiflRng that (for visibility la often bad there and currents treacherous), treacher-ous), she will pass between Tlerra del Fuego and the small Island the southern tip of which Is the dread- 4 a1 Rnrn the chance of a cargo at the end of It and she carries her wheat well and delivers It In good condition. She has the added advantage, sometimes, of bringing about a gamble gam-ble to her ' charterers. She may load on a falling. market and set out with her wheat worth shillngs below be-low payable price. She takes months on her voyage, providing good free warehouse on the way. and sometimes some-times has the luck to arrive In time to take advantage of an upward trend of which there was no sign when she left For this reason shippers still like to take an odd gamble with a sailing sail-ing ship, particularly In recent seasons, sea-sons, when wheat prices have been so dull that the grower's hope lies In some unforeseen upward trend when "bottom has been touched." The Swedish four-masted bark Beatrice In 1930 was chartered to bring home wool from Melbourne to London a trade which throughout this country has been religiously the exclusive right of the steamer simply because she provided long warehousing by the duration of her voyage, and there was a chance that prices would rise while she was on her way. She was 110 days on the passage, and her charterers had the satisfaction satisfac-tion of clearing better prices for the wool they sent In her than they obtained for any they had sent In steamers. The steamers had dis 1 8om Sailing 8hlpa Around the Horn. I Even sailing ships avoid Cape 1 Horn now.'when they can. It to a 1 regular thing for the guano barks, j coming op from Guanape, Loboa, I and Santa Rosa -for Jacksonville, I Wilmington, or Falmouth for orders. I to pass through the canal Instead of using the old highway to the south and doubling the Horn. Indeed, in the grain race of 1930 one sailor from Australia, the Swedish four-masted four-masted bark Cf B. Pedersen, actually actu-ally made her, way Into the Atlantic by way of Panama Instead of the Horn an entirely unprecedented experience ex-perience that would make a thou-. thou-. sand old shellbacks turn In their 'i graves. I But there still remains a small j coterie of wind ships regularly us-I us-I ing the Cape Horn road. There are the German nitrate carriers, the big four-masters of the Hamburg Laelsz line Padua, Passat Parma, Prl-I Prl-I wall, Parmlr, and Peking all splen-I splen-I did. upstanding, four-masted barks, i powerful, clean-lined, speedy, and I economical. They remain In com-I com-I I mission to carry nitrate from Ger-I Ger-I I man mines In Chile to German fac-! fac-! i torles on the Elbe. They are manned charged their wool on a falling market mar-ket months earlier; the Beatrice arrived ar-rived to find stocks lower and prices slightly higher. As her freight rate was lower than the steamer's, her chartering was profitable to the wool owners. But against the lower freight rate has to be offset the tendency on the part of underwriters natural, perhapsto per-hapsto charge a higher premium for the Insurance of sailing ships' cargoes. "Races" That Are Not Races. Since the World war, a few sailing sail-ing ships have been able annually to obtain wheat charters from Australia Aus-tralia to the English channel for orders, or-ders, since they all leave about the same time, and since their scarcity brings them to the notice of the press and of the public, their sailings sail-ings have come to be known as "races," though they are not really anything of the kind. Some of those ships are in no fit condition to race ; some of them never were. They are not proud clipper ships, built to run fleetly before the gale and to carry steerageway through doldrum calms. They are great cargo-carrying steel wagons, wall-sided and heavy lined. largely by boys who must see serv-I serv-I ice In fdeep-water, square-rigged : I ships before their country will al-XfciiLlhem al-XfciiLlhem jto sit for examination as officers. fThey are well found and I make good voyages. Some of them I are comparatively new ships. Two have been built-since the World war; one of them, the Padua, as i late as 1925. They carry no aux-! aux-! lliary engines of any kind. One of them, the full-rigged ship Pinnas, was lost in 1929. "Tjtpse Germans, with the sailors of (ne Finnish fleet and one or two J Swedes. Just about comprise the j whole of the world's sea-going I square-rigged ships. America still has one or two ; but except for the I four-masted Monongahela. which was In Port Adelaide In January, 1928, where she discharged a cargo cf lumber, and the full-rigged ship j Tusltala. which Is a more or less regular user of the Panama canal, none Is still In commission. I How the Sailor Gets Cargoes. The majority of the square-riggers till rounding the Horn are In the grain trade from Australia, This 1 Is the last happy hunting ground of I the big sailing ship, whicb has been ! with biurr dows ana neavy scerns, oversparred and undermanned. They make rare visits to dry docks, since dry-docking costs money and must be a luxury to them. They run upon the border line, with crews of Inexperienced Inex-perienced boys; their gear to old; sometimes their plates leak a little, here and there, and they are badly bad-ly off for sails. There are still a few ships which are able to give good accounts of themselves, and generally do the Finnish four-masted bark-Herzogln Cecilie, which was formerly a Nord-deutscher Nord-deutscher Lloyd training ship; the Swedish four-masted bark Beatrice, formerly the Clydeslder Routeri-burn; Routeri-burn; the ex-Englishman Archibald Russell, and the old Dundee-built Lawhlll but the bulk of the ships progress slowly over great waters and are content If they come to port at all, without racing. They are more concerned with the safe delivery of their cargoes and the return to their homes of all those who set out to sea In them than spectacular and thrilling bold lng on of sail in heavy gales and forcing the ship In short tack against bead winds. 1 |