Lawhill Story

John Richardson

Description

During the long gone ages of maritime history many ships of sail and steam have captured the imagination; one of them was a sailing vessel named Lawhill, a four masted barque which after being built at Dundee in 1892 lasted right up until 1957.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Maritime history

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 22 avril 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783066025
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Lawhill Story
John Richardson
Copyright 2014 John Richardson
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
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ISBN 9781783066025
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Contents
Foreword
Preface
The Lawhill Story
Captain Gustaf Adolf Mauritz Erikson (1872-1947)
Captain John Charles Barron Jarvis
The Oil Sailers and the Grain Ships
Captain Charles Barrie, Lawhill s first owner
The Speedy Clippers versus the Slowcoach Windjammers.
Vincenzo J Penso
The 1946 Log of Lawhill
The 1947 Log of Lawhill
Lawhill s 50 Voyages between 1892 and 1947
Lawhill s 14 Captains
Juteopolis
Glossary
Sources of Information
Picture credits

The Lawhill Story
This is a story about the Lawhill, a ship which was one of the thousands of medium sized four masted barques that was built during the windjammer boom of the late nineteenth century. At 2,816 nett and 2916 gross tons she had a deadweight or cargo capacity of 4,800 tons. In all she had 14 different captains, served through two world wars and lasted for 65 years until broken up in1957. Although records do not exist, it is more than likely that Lawhill carried more cargo tonnage around the world than any other ship in the history of sail. After being under nine different owners during her sailing days, the ship s name was never changed from when she was built in1892 until 1957. Amongst many of the 120 quality photographs within these pages, most of them are of Lawhill, her sailors, and the working of the ship. There are, however, a few identifiable anomalies in this book, which have been taken from the decks of other sailing ships for use as examples. At the end of the book there is a glossary which describes the nautical terms within; there is also a short biography of the 14 captains the ship had, and a list of the 50 voyages undertaken by Lawhill .
Lawhill
Author s painting
Foreword

By Nigel Lawrence, Editor of Shipping Today and Yesterday.
Lawhill was one of the last of the great four-masted barques to sail as a commercial vessel in the 20th century. Between the middle of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, sailing ships rose to their peak in design. The four-masted barques and the larger five-masted vessels were the ultimate in sailing ships, and Lawhill was one of the giants. The steel-hulled vessel was launched at Dundee on 24th August 1892 at the Caledon Shipbuilding Engineering Company yard of W. B. Thompson for the jute trade from India, but this was soon abandoned as that trade declined and steamships started to take over, knocking weeks off the long journeys. The owners of the big sailing ships had to look for new trades where slow passages were not a disadvantage.
On 31st August 1899 Lawhill was sold to the Lawhill Sailing Ship Co. Ltd. of London, together with her sister ship Juteopolis. In June 1900 the barque was transferred to the Anglo American Oil Company. She made nine voyages carrying oil and other cargoes, then the development of storage tank capacity reduced demand, and Lawhill went, again together with her sister ship Juteopolis, to Geo. Windram Co. of Liverpool in 1911. In 1914, she was sold to Finnish owner August Troberg and Lawhill became Finland s largest sailing ship. Despite the hazards of World War I, Lawhill continued to sail, managing to elude U-boats and arrive unescorted into Brest in May 1917, carrying wheat from Australia. However, French authorities refused to let Lawhill leave, citing the risks, and used her as a store ship. While in port, Lawhill was purchased by another Finn, Gustaf Erikson, but before she could get to sea, Finland became an ally of Germany, and in June 1918, the French government officially requisitioned Lawhill. The French started to convert Lawhill to a motor ship, but after much protest, Erikson finally got her back in January 1919, and she resumed carrying wheat, first from Argentina, then from Australia again, as well as timber and other cargoes. The author Alan Villiers served on Lawhill, until injured off Port Lincoln in a fall from the yardarm in 1922. On 1st October 1932 she rammed and sank the 3,107 grt Polish steamer Niemen in the Skagerrak. Captain S derlund, the Lawhill master, was cleared of any blame.
After twenty years of steady service as a grain carrier, Lawhill was arrested on 21st August 1941 while in East London after a voyage from Australia and officially confiscated by the South African government in 1942 as a prize of war, Finland having sided with the Axis. The ship was used by the South African Railways Harbour Administration for cargo during the war, then sold to Lawhill Pty Ltd., East London, and in 1947 she was sold again to Thomas Worker and Herman Olthaver of Johannesburg, for the sum of 9,000, who used her on several voyages to Argentina with coal and returning with a cargo of wheat. In November 1947 she sailed from Louren o Marques to Port Victoria in ballast and returned to Beira, Mozambique, with a cargo of wheat. This was her last long voyage at sea. Showing signs of deterioration, she was sold to Marcio da Silva Jr. of Louren o Marques and arrived there in September 1948 with great ceremony, after a short voyage of 500 nautical miles from Beira. However, the necessary repairs were beyond the means of her new owners, and she was laid up in the Tembe River where she rotted away whilst lying at anchor over the following ten years. The old ship was finally broken up for scrap in the late 1950s. Although in itself her career was not especially remarkable, apart from mainly being a profitable ship, the fact that she survived in service for 56 years always keeping her original name, was quite a feat for such a ship. She also found fame by being featured in The Anatomy of a Ship series of books, with an entire book being dedicated to her, extensively documenting Lawhill s internal features and her construction.
John Richardson was fortunate enough to obtain the diaries that were kept by leading seaman Pim Penso who sailed on her in 1946 and 1947. Pim was also an accomplished photographer, both of still and movie photographs and he amassed a collection of both, many of which can be seen in this book.
This is a fine insight into life onboard one of these large sailing ships and I am sure you will enjoy reading it as much as I have.
Nigel Lawrence
Alderney
September 2013
Preface

At the time of writing in the year 2013, there are few men left alive today who actually served on ships of sail during the days of the windjammers. Many sailors of the day hadn t received any education; they were unable to write about their experiences, and that alone has left a huge void in recorded maritime history. But since those long gone days things have changed, and modern day history writers are salving what they can from those bleak days when communication of any description was sparse. Indeed, it is with the passage of time that writing on any historical subject has taken a new turn, and one where the computer with its storage systems as well as other means of fast and simple communication, can help modern history writers tremendously in their efforts to compile a manuscript on any desired subject.
Such is the case with this publication, where after having amassed a large collection of sailing ship pictures and their histories for more than half a century, and serving at sea with some of the men who manned sailing ships in the last days of sail, the author can, with his computer, CDs and DVDs, write this manuscript with much more ease and accuracy. Some critics of today say all the modern day writers are doing is re-cycling what others before them have already written. This may be true to a certain extent, but how many times have those students of maritime history read two or more different accounts of one particular incident, written by different writers, and then been left in doubt as to which one is correct.
Indeed, some authors write a manuscript on what has already been printed by a number of different writers. But they have all been in bits and pieces and at times are both confusing and incorrect. With regards to this book devoted to Lawhill , it is through years of study and research that the author has been able to compile all those bits and pieces to formulate his own presentations.
In writing this story on Lawhill , the author actually served on British merchant ships in the early 1950 s - and had been shipmates with some of the older crew members who d sailed in The Last Grain Races. During those years he gained valuable first hand information from those old Shell Backs. Furthermore, during his service in the South African Navy between 1975 and 1990, when living and based in Simonstown, the author met three former crew men of Lawhill who had lived or settled there. One of those men was named Du Ploy, an Afrikaaner who came from South Africa s Orange Free State. Given the nickname of Old Doop he was the senior rigger in the Simonstown naval base where the author often worked under his charge.
Old Doop seldom if ever wore his uniform, but was always recognisable