When the ship Joseph Conrad stood out to sea off Sydney Heads on 18 December 1935, the artist Os Brett was there. Disappointed that his parents would not let him sail with the white-winged ship, he made notes far this painting, which catches the pilot steamer Wararah in company with the Conrad, as the little ship gathers way after heaving-to to drop offthe pilots, Captains Murchison and Brew. The Wararah survives today at the Sydney Maritime Museum, and the Joseph Conrad at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut.
This was in 1931 , after Villiers had begun to earn a good living as writer and lecturer. So ... he had some money, and his old skipper Captain Ruben de Cloux, with whom he'd sailed in the Lawhill and the famous H erzogin Cecilie, joined up with him to buy the Parma and sail her in the grain trade from Australia. The scheme worked! Pardy it worked because the Parma had gone for a tiny fraction of her original cost. Scots built in 1902, she had been kept up in splendid condition by her owners, F. Laeisz ofHamburg, Germany. Laeisz ships sailed in the Cape Horn trade to Chilean ports for nitrate. As this trade died our the ships of their famous Flying P line had come on the marker. Another reason the scheme worked goes to the heart of the story of the last great square riggers in the Cape Horn trade, the existence in Mariehamn in rhe remote Aland Islands, of the ships of Gustaf Erikson. Born of a farming family rhar also owned and sailed small ships, Erikson had begun buyi ng up big sailing ships for the Australian grain trade as these ships were crowded our of other markets by the ever-advancing steamship. He ran a right ship-and he kept the culture of deepwater square rig alive, first as cook and eventually captain. Villiers's partner Captain de Cloux was an Erikson skipper, and Erikson carefully recruited the best in the rough dying business of deepwarer sail. Hardy Aland Island farm boys and fishermen made up the crews, supplemented by a steady flow of yo ung men-like Alan Villiers-as the word spread that yo u could sail in what gradually became the world's last deepwarer trade in square rig. This paid a small wage with good solid food and quarters which, while subject to flooding in heavy weather, provided a narrow bunk, and the company of a disciplined sociery of hard-working young men who rook some pride in the intricate skills, daring and teamwork it rook to drive a great sailing ship. Villiers had learned these disciplines, and in de Cloux he had a captain of the highest class. They did everything ro save on costs, bur also everything to serve the ship. Thar dedication, abetted by a lucky shift in the price of grain, berween Australia and England, was what made the voyage the success it was. A second voyage, in 1932-3 worked our well, roo. The great ship made a record run of 83 days from Australia to England. And then Villiers left her. With what must have seemed a great heap of money in hand, he sought a way ro use it rhar would do some good in the world, and so conceived of the voyage of rhejoseph Conrad. He would buy a ship of his own and sail to another purpose. He would find a small ship of traditional rig in which he could sail in rhe wake of the old voyagers who first opened the ocean world, training young people in rhe ways of rhe sea. He looked at some of the French wooden barkentines that sailed in the ancient trade of the Grand Banks cod fisheries , off Newfoundland, bur these needed heavy repairs; they were not a practical proposition. When he came upon
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rhe Georg Stage on the Copenhagen waterfront, he knew he had found the ship he wanted. T his was the ship he bought and renamed Joseph Conrad. From the Conrad Forward Ultimately, after many anxious days, Villiers did find the money to continue on from Australia. Free at last of the "shore bastards," Villiers rook delight in revisiting Captain Cook's old stomping grounds, voyaging to New Zealand and T ahiri. Squaring off for Cape Horn, the Conrad rook a dusting. She ran before rhe heavy winds and the huge cresting seas of the Southern Ocean. Some way short of the Horn, a gale hit them with a particular ferociry, piling gust upon gust rather than dying away after irs first assault. Villiers began to worry that the ship might be pooped-or have the sea board her stern and sweep her length, breaking steering gear, skylight and deckhouse doors. The sea could make the vessel broach ro, hurling her sideways to rhewind, so all the gale's force and breaking seas would conspire to overthrow her, with masts in the water and every likelihood of the cargo hatches carrying away, sinking her like a stone, with all her people. Villiers had been through a near-fatal experience on these lines in the Parma's first voyage, the big ship thrown aro und like a toy and the after saloon flooded our through a broken skylight. The Conrad was built for the Baltic, a sea which could nor conceive of such seas as these Cape Horn combers, sweeping unobstructed righraround rheworld. Her stern had no poop-so a big sea could easily board her there, sweeping all before it, with dire consequences to follow. He knew that he had to bring the ship round, head to wind. Hove-to in that posture, she wo uld be ready to rake the worst Old Ocean could throw at them, bow-on. He waited for a smooth or lull berween big seas. The worst thing would be to be caught halfway through the turn. Visibili ry was getting worse, daylight fading. And there came a lesser wave, usually a presage of rwo or three more to follow, constituting rhe desired "smooth. " Bur with the ship committed to the turn , swinging fast to bringher head up, a giant sea loomed our of the halflighr. Ir was now a race to see whether the vessel wo uld come up head to wind before the sea hit. She did-just barely-taki ng a srrong glancing blow which wrecked one of the ship's boars and stove in a deckhouse door-bur doing the ship herself no real hurt. Villiers sat with the gang off watch that night, as the ship rode
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