Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - 'Windjammers' and Penarth Dock . . . .

An amazing book named 'The Last of the Windjammers' by Basil Lubbock [1876-1944] was published in 1929 in two volumes [1336] [499] and the following excepts are considered relevant to our Penarth Dock heritage story since it provides an insight into life aboard these vessels and the nature of the crews.

The characteristics of the crew of the windjammers was a critical factor:

'The master mariner who commanded in the last days of sail had rarely ever been in steam. He did not consider steam-boating as seafaring. He spoke of a comrade who had gone into steam as a man who had given up the sea ; and snorted with disgust at the mere idea of it being possible to train a sailor in a smoke-stack.

The typical old man of a lime-juicer had almost invariably had a training of inconceivable hardness - perhaps in a Welsh copper-ore Cape Horner, often in a North Country collier and not seldom in a Blue-nose blood boat -  I have mentioned the worst for hard work, hard knocks and hard weather.

In such trades a man was brought to a toughness of mind, body and soul which nothing imaginable could affect though his temper might not always be of the sweetest.'

Then there were the simple cock ups!

This man had been second mate of the famous 'Sobraon' when she found herself sailing up the Bristol Channel instead of the English Channel. The story is an amusing one.

A pilot cutter hailed the 'Sobraon' with the question :- "Do you want a pilot for Cardiff?" “No,” came the answer, "I am bound to London." "Why," yelled back the astonished pilot, "Lundy Island is just over there!"

At this the lost captain of the 'Sobraon' turned round without a word and disappeared below, where he drank a bottle of brandy. Next voyage he was replaced.

I just love that tale!