Unmooring the fou r-masted bark Moshulu in Newcastle, New South Wales , Australia . A hand straddles a jibboom guy to pass a messenger in through the hawse pipe; the towline fro m the tug in the f oreground will then be hauled aboard. The other towing vessel, a paddle tug, is already secured alongside. Moshulu was a frequent visitor f or coal cargoes, particularly during her years as the Kurt.
The Mighty Moshulu: A Short History, Part II by Karl Moshulu 's special importance as perhaps the ultimate square rigger-and surely the most beautiful ofthe big four-ma sted barks that closed out the era ofdeep water sail-is underlined by the interest sailors always took in her. Over a quarter century ago, in December 1964, Karl Kortum, then director ofthe San Francisco Maritime Museum, was urging the San Francisco Port Authority to take on the Moshulu-"a real sailing ship, a ship with a history of her own." Here Kortum, Chairman Emeritus of the National Maritime Historical Society, continues his history of the big, graceful four-poster and her varied career-a career now in suspense as she sits docked in Camden, across from Philadelphia, awaiting what fate holds in store for her. As the shipping industry sank ever deeper into the Depression, Moshulu, now laid up at anchor near Seattle since her last lumber passage in 1928, was in luck. She had a rescuer. The most remarkable figure in the fin al era of the sailing ship was Gustav Erikson, the Finni sh shipowner headquartered in Mariehamn in the Aland Islands . He kept the last large fl eet of square-rigged ships on earth operating in the Cape Hom trade. His vessels continued sailing up to World War II-and three of them sailed after the war. Erikson had fo und a source of profi t in manning his vessels with lads, fo r the most part in their teens, and sending the ships
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Kortum out to Australia in ballast to load wheat. The wheat was carried eastward, around Cape Hom and up the South and North Atl antic to European destinations. Thi s annual circumnavigation of the world became famous as the "grain race." Among his vessels were the Grace Harwar, Herzogin Cecilie, Olivebank, Archibald Russell, Pamir, Pommern, Killoran, Winterhude, Hougomont and Lawhill, as well as other great sai ling ships. They gained the world's attention by their beauty and longev ity (and the fac t that they were still making money). It was the Australi an-born sailor and sea writer, Alan Villiers, who made the grain race celebrated with his books, movies taken at sea, and articles in National Geographic Maga zine. In 1935 Gustav Erikson sent Captain Gunnar Boman, late commanderofthe Grace Harwar, to Seattle to size up the long laid up Moshulu. Boman crossed by ferry to Winslow and ex haustively surveyed the ship, which was then tied up to trees. In the end he recommended buying her, although after seven years of di suse the Moshulu was understandably in rundown conditi on. The big fo ur- masted bark was the 48th vessel purchased fo r Erikson (once a sailing ship captain himself) since he turned to shipowning in 19 13. The price settled on for M oshulu was $ 12,000. She joined a flo tilla of twenty-four of the world 's best and largest surviving sailing vessels. The frugal and ship-wise Erikso n sent fo urteen men fo r the ship, mostl y lads, from Mariehamn via New York and from SEA HISTORY 6 1, SPRING 1992