Local vessels accompany the bark Pi cton Castle as she Leaves Cape Town, South Africa, in 1999. (Photo: Courtesy Picton Cas d e)
a minute older. As we were making up the las t hawsers to the pier and letting the tugs go, there he was looking as if he had just stepped off the poop deck of the Romance as he pil oted us out 22 yea rs ago. Bound fo r Rio we were. W hat a passage that was! Thirty-s ix days, twenty-six under studding sails. I, on the other hand, do n't quite look as I did 22 yea rs ago. But, never mind. T he Kimberlys (now of D etroit) sent us a fin e portfolio of ships and sto ries of our Cape H orn friends along with a hand-sewn banner of sailcloth naming all the ships represented by the Cape H om ers . It was a replica of one we had that night on the Romance all those years ago . The banner was in effect a roll call of crew and tall ships that dated back almost a century and a quarter: Calbuco (l 885), D umfriesshire (l 890), Greif (l 892), Lawhill (1 892), Olivebank (1892), Abraham Rydberg (1 892), Falkirk (l 896), Grossherzogin Elisabeth (1901 ), H erzogin Cecilie (1902), Parma (1 902), Passat (1 911 ), Peking (1 9 11 ), Padua (1 926), Picton Castle (l 928), D anmark (1 932), and Romance (1936). The Kimberlys had added rhe Danmark to rhe esteemed ships emblazoned there. I had had four years in the D anmark sin ce my Romance days. Bur no, at that point, I had not ro unded Cape Horn . But these ships were certainly all contemporaries at one rime and many D anmark crewwent o ff in the T hirties to be crew in the illustrious Finnish, German, English, South Afri can, Swedish, and D anish square riggers. In that time, they were mosdy Finnish out of the Aland Islands, members of the las t 32
great commercial fleet of square riggers. T he Gustaf Erikson line, which sails to this day in motor vessels, tied up their last sailing ship as a museum after her las t cargo of wheat was unloaded in 1947. No arcane restoration-just ti ed her up , sent down sail , swept the holds and said , "You' re a museum now, old bucker. " The D anmark was run lirde different from the old grain ships, I was to find our, bur that's another story. T here was Phil Nankin , mare o n Lawhill and Passaton the dock. U nlimited Master Mariner, head of the South Africa Merchant Marine Academy for 20 years, raco nteur and rogue who plays to the galleries, and yes, old friend, too . N o, in fact, not a day had gone by except when we rallied up those who had pulled their moo rings fo r rhe las t rime. The missing hand I had known the bes t besides Phil Nan kin was Pamela Erickso n, doyenne of the fa mous and powerful fo ur-mas ted bark H erzogin Cecilie. Seafarer, story relier, yoga reacher, farmer, a wo man stunning in every sense of the wo rd, then in her late sixties, she had fini shed her days in her adopted country of Finland and I was n' t to see her again. Bur, neverth eless, it was resolved to rarde all the cages, scrape all the barrels, spring all the jails, and have a Cape Homers parry in the salon down in the 'tween decks of the Picton Castle. After all , what is she, if nor a little steel Cape H orn er herself? Gust add water- the traversed waters of the Adantic, Caribbean, Pacifi c, and Indian O ceans to be specific.) And so it we nt. So me came early and
stayed late. W e had a traditional Romance rum punch called a "marlinspike" on deck, a good look around rhe ship, and a feed in the main salo n. T hen the sea stories took over. O ne o r two old shell backs per tablesurroun ded by our yo unger bur nonetheless certi fied shellbacks- relling stories, as king questi ons, p ro mpting a littl e, so me graciously rerurned questions about our ship and o ur world voyage. Picton Castle crew Matth ew Johnso n got to meet contemporaries of his grandfather, Captain Irving Johnso n, who sailed in the Peking (now tied up at the South Street Seaport Museum in M anhattan). Doris Soderlund, who sailed in her fa ther's four-m as ted bark Lawhill fo r a dozen years, captured a table full of Picton Castle crew with her precise sto ries of h er years under sail: escaping the Russians in F inland; sailing through min e fields; long howling passages to Australia; racing round Cape Horn in the teeth of a hurri cane-s trength westerly; icebergs; injunctions to not associate (much) with the yo un g male crew of D ad's ship. In the end D oris captured all of us. D urchy va n Dijl held others at the next table. An d Phil Nankin's suggestion that we cast off that very night for one more go was merwi th applause. T he rest were happy enough to h ave the interest of this, the next generati on of square-rig sailors. And so the night went on. Eventually, one or two cabs showed up and veteran Romance hands from Cape Town, Carol Rhoem and David Becker, got our Cape H om ers as hore and safely home. When all was quiet, the anchor watch took a turn about deck and, looking up through the ya rds and rigging of our ship, could see the co ttony tablecloth of Table Mountain spilling over in the starlight promising a southeast gale by morning. ,!, Capt. Daniel Mo reland has 26years ofseafaring experience under sail. H e refi t the Picton Castle to sailing condition to take p aying crew around the world under sail. The bark will set out on her JSecond circumnavigation in N ovember 20010. For information, call 603 4240219, fax 603 424-1 849, e-mail D avid Robinson att wissco@juno.com, or check out the web site ' at www.picton-castle.com.
SEA HIISTORY 93 , SUMMER 2000