On top of the world, the 26 year-old Australian sits out on one of the Grace Harwar's yards, with the camera he used to record the life of a dying breed, the square-rigged deepwaterman. Photos, A.J. Villiers unless otherwise noted.
Bordeaux , from where he fortunately managed to sign as able seaman aboard the Finnish four masted bark Lawhill, skippered by Ruben de Cloux and owned by Gustav Erikson. The "lucky" Lawhill, built at Dundee in 1892 , survived two world wars and would likely be afloat yet had her later owners not abandoned her to disintegrate in an East African roadstead about 1950. She dragged ashore and was broken up where she lay some years later. The old girl made a smart 75-day ballast passage to Port Lincoln for orders to load South Australian grain for the Channel . She was very competently handled, if undermanned, and the boy crew from Mariehamn were a happy family. Unfortunately, when approaching the anchorage off Port Lincoln the Lawhill briefly stranded, and Alan, aloft making fast the fore lower topsail, hauling up the canvas with both hands, was suddenly pitched onto the deck below when she touched the shingle. Miraculously he was neither killed nor broke any bones-but he did suffer severe internal injuries, and could barely move for weeks. It was the only fall from aloft he experienced , or even saw, during his time at sea . Since he had not recovered when the Lawhill sailed, the Old Man had no alternative but to pay him off, and Alan returned home to Melbourne by train. Scarcely recovered , he worked for a time ashore in an iron foundry before going back to sea. In the Little Dock at the foot of Spencer Street , Alan joined the decrepit 70 ton ketch Hawk, trading across the wild waters of Bass Strait; a forbidding graveyard of shipping. For the passage to Launceston, fifteen miles up the Tamar River in Tasmania , the Hawk loaded 100 tons of bagged superphosphates. This was topped off with a deck cargo of cased benzine, upon which was situated the firebox, or "galley." When Alan brought this hazard to the mate's attention the mate's rejoinder was : " How the hell else can we git our tea?" A turn at the wheel was go there and stay there, as was going on deck with almost no watch below, and the quarters were miserably damp. Meals consisted of what could be caught on a fishing line trailing astern , augmented with moldy potatoes. After a two-day passage they arrived in the Tamar, and beat up to Launceston where they worked out the cargo themselves. They then loaded sawn hardwood for Melbourne. Alan's injuries were still very painful, and after making two trips , articles were broken for the Christmas holidays. Alan was then glad to pay off for good from the parsimonious Hawk. If he was ever to finish his time it would have to be in steam , so he signed on the Erriba , a new tramp steamer of 6,000 tons of the Australian Commonwealth Line. Loading South Australian grain in sacks at Port Lincoln , she discharged at New Castle-onType after a comfortable though uneventful passage to England. From Cardiff the Erriba loaded a cargo of coal for East Africa , and then light ship home to Melbourne. Alan had now completed his four years' sea time, but the prospects of a career as an officer in steam, and later command, held little appeal. Rather than sit for his second mate's certificate, he decided to make a fresh start ashore in Hobart, on the banks of the Derwent River in Tasmania , which has one of the loveliest settings of any Australian city. Originally a convict settlement with a savage reputation, Hobart Town became a great whaling port and shipbuilding centre, where a number of famous whalers and bluegum clippers were built. The waterfront with its many ancient stone convict buildings, was steeped in the history of its maritime past . Alan had previously noted these things when they had once loaded timber here in the James Craig. The hulk of the once lovely iron bark Otago, which had been Joseph Conrad's command in the 1880s, was now used at the Hobart wharves to furnish coal to steamers. She became a never-ending source of interest to Alan on his waterfront visits. He would delightedly walk her small poop, still intact with its original wheel and fittings . Having no idea what he'd do ashore, Alan soon found work as SEA HISTORY, SUMMER 1984
'its long as I li ved I wo uld owe her so m ethin g," said Villiers of his first ship, the imercolonial bark Rothesay Bay, at right. Below, the big bad Be ll a nd s, a staunch ship bur contemptibly officered , in which Villi ers fi rst sail ed to Europ e. Ph o tos, Natio nal Maritim e Mu seum , San Francisco.