Grain race
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Grain Race or The Great Grain Race was the informal name for the annual windjammer sailing season generally from South Australia's grain ports on Spencer Gulf to Lizard Point, Cornwall on the southwesternmost coast of the United Kingdom, or to specific ports. A good, fast passage Australia-to-England via Cape Horn was considered anything under 100 days.[1]
The races
[edit]The cargo was grain, usually wheat. The sailing ships which loaded in Spencer Gulf from January to June were, in a broader context, "vivid evidence that South Australia was now inextricably bound into the rapidly developing global network of the wheat trade."[2] The masters of the square-rigged grain carriers engaged in unofficial competition who would sail fastest across the southern ocean, around Cape Horn and up the Atlantic. While the race was informal, it was a source of betting and prestige. The competition gathered so much attention that in 1928 the International Paint company donated a silver cup for the fastest passage.[1]
The ship with most victories was the four-masted barque Herzogin Cecilie at six times. The fastest ship was Parma in 1933 in 83 days, and the events of the voyage are described by the captain's apprentice, Betty Jacobsen, in her book A Girl Before the Mast.[3] The grain trade "flourished through the 1930s and reached its peak in 1939." That year thirteen windjammers rode at anchor off Port Victoria. "With the exception of two German ships, all ... flew the flag of the Gustaf Erikson Line and the pale blue Finnish cross."[4]
The last race
[edit]
The last of the Grain Races was in 1949. Pamir (Captain Verner Björkfelt), fully loaded with 60,000 sacks of Australian barley for distilleries in Scotland, set sail at Port Victoria on 28 May 1949, rounded Cape Horn on 11 July, passed Lizard Point on 2 October and arrived at Falmouth just beyond it in 128 days. Passat (Captain Ivar Hägerstrand), left Port Victoria four days after Pamir, but passed Pamir somewhere in the Roaring Forties of the southern Pacific Ocean on the 6,000 mile run to Cape Horn, and arrived at Penarth Dock South Wales after 110 days. However, it bestowed on Pamir the honor of being the last windjammer with a commercial load to round Cape Horn.[5]
Public perception and reality in retrospect
[edit]While the general public thought of the wheat trade as the Grain Race, "there was no compelling economic reason to be first home with a cargo of grain, and the [ship] owners severely discouraged racing by their officers (although they did not mind if their ship arrived ahead of another)." Racing in the gale-force winds of the Roaring Forties and around Cape Horn meant straining ships and losing sails and gear, and it meant the expense of repairing or replacing those damages and losses. "Unlike the hell-bent racing captains of the celebrated tea-clippers of the 1860s ... the captain of a grain ship who lost gear more likely would lose his job."[6]
Grain races 1921–1949
[edit]| Year | Winning ship | Flag | Days | Route |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1921 | Marlborough Hill | Finland | 91 | Port Lincoln–Cobh |
| 1922 | Milverton | Finland | 90 | Melbourne–London |
| 1923 | Beatrice | Sweden | 88 | Melbourne–London |
| 1924 | Greif | Germany | 110 | Port Lincoln–Falmouth |
| 1925 | Beatrice | Sweden | 103 | Adelaide–Falmouth |
| 1926 | L'Avenir | Belgium | 110 | Geelong–Lizard |
| 1927 | Herzogin Cecilie | Finland | 98 | Port Lincoln–Cobh |
| 1928 | Herzogin Cecilie | Finland | 96 | Port Lincoln–Falmouth |
| 1929 | Archibald Russell | Finland | 93 | Melbourne–Cobh |
| 1930 | Pommern | Finland | 105 | Wallaroo–Falmouth |
| 1931 | Herzogin Cecilie | Finland | 93 | Wallaroo–Falmouth |
| 1932 | Parma | Finland | 103 | Port Broughton–Falmouth |
| Pamir | Finland | 103 | Wallaroo–Cobh | |
| 1933 | Parma | Finland | 83 | Port Victoria–Falmouth |
| 1934 | Passat | Finland | 106 | Wallaroo–Lizard |
| 1935 | Priwall | Germany | 91 | Port Victoria–Cobh |
| 1936 | Herzogin Cecilie | Finland | 86 | Port Lincoln–Falmouth |
| 1937 | Pommern | Finland | 94 | Port Victoria–Falmouth |
| Passat | Finland | 94 | Port Victoria–Falmouth | |
| 1938 | Passat | Finland | 98 | Port Victoria–Falmouth |
| 1939 | Moshulu | Finland | 91 | Port Victoria–Cobh |
| 1948 | Viking | Finland | 139 | Port Victoria–Falmouth |
| 1949 | Passat | Finland | 110 | Port Victoria to Penarth dock south wales |
See also
[edit]- Åland Maritime Museum
- The Last Grain Race, a 1956 book by Eric Newby on the last (1939) voyage in the Australian grain trade by Moshulu, the largest sailing ship still transporting grain at the time
References
[edit]- ^ a b Stark, William F. The Last Time around Cape Horn, the Historic 1949 Voyage of the Windjammer Pamir. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. 2003, p. 77. Author Stark was a crew member of Pamir on this last commercial voyage around Cape Horn
- ^ Meinig, D.W. On the Margins of the Good Earth, the South Australian Wheat Frontier. Chicago: Rand McNally & Company. 1962, p. 165
- ^ Jacobsen, Betty. A Girl Before the Mast. C. Scribner's sons, New York, London, 1934. 264 pp. ASIN [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0006AMFOS B0006AMFOS ]
- ^ Stark, p. 78
- ^ Stark, p. 147-153
- ^ Apollonio, Spencer (Editor). The Last of the Cape Horners, Firsthand Accounts from the Final Days of the Commercial Tall Ships. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's. 2000, p. xxv
Further reading
[edit]- Kåhre, Georg (1978). The Last Tall Ships: Gustav Erikson and the Åland Sailing Fleets 1872–1947. Greenwich: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-134-3