Volume Eight - Pre-Victorian to the present day - more aspects - Pamir and Passat - the end of an era . . .

Four days later the Pamir was sighted far off through the stormy mists; they were too far to signal but there was no doubt of her identity for they were the only two four-masters in this part of the world. The Passat rounded the Horn 39 days out, and took another 26 days to the Line. On the evening of her 89th day at sea the bark was spoken to by the United States Coast Guard weather ship Fox on duty in the North Atlantic.

On September 19 the Passat anchored at Cobh, Eire, 110 days from Australia. Five days later she was underway again, bound for Penarth to lay up with her cargo. Slowly she crept through mists and fogs in the Irish Sea. Lookouts kept a sharp watch for steamers while they listened for the fog whistle on the Smalls, a group of rocky isles at the entrance to the Bristol Channel. Suddenly, without warning, breakers appeared right ahead. All hands made a dash for the braces as the wheel was spun over. The Passat gradually came about, filling away on the other tack as she steered for deeper water; it had been a close call. She arrived at Penarth on October 3.

Captain Edger Erikson, owner of the last fleet of large square-riggers, announced late in the year that his vessels were for sale. The Pamir, Passat, and the Viking, which had spent the year laid up at antwerp, were priced at about $84,000 cash; the Pommern, moored for several years at Mariehamn, could be had for half that price. Municipal authorities at Helsinki have proposed using the latter as a floating hotel." [291]

The article continues for some pages listing the other fine barques bound for the 'knackers yard' as the author puts it. We move on a few years to the loss of the Pamir and what I find to be a somewhat disturbing article published in the Chilean Naval Review Nr. 2/95 written by a Second Lieutenant of the Naval Reserve, Nicolás Yaksic Triantafilo [294] and published on the fine website of the Brotherhood of Cape Horners. [295]

The Lost Wake of the Pamir

Background Data - "The "P Line" began operating in worldwide seaborne trade in 1874, with the 1,020 ton Polynesia, owned by the German ship owner R. F. Laiesz.

Around the year 1880, Laiesz increased his fleet by adding the first 1,400 ton sailing ships, with the later addition to the company in the following years of the nitrate sailing ships Potosi, Pangani, Preussen and Pamir.