A stirring homage to a boyhood apprenticeship aboard the commercial sailing ships of the late nineteenth century.
About the Book
When Frank Hubert Shaw first went to sea in 1893 at the age of fifteen, he did so under the White Ensign of the Merchant Navy. He served his apprenticeship on the windjammers of the day — the multi-masted steel sailing ships that roamed the world’s oceans, carrying vital cargoes of grain, wool, coal, and nitrates.
Shaw vividly recounts the relentless battle between man and the treacherous sea, and the motley crews he encountered on his voyages. An experienced writer and Merchant Navy captain, he brings to life what it truly meant to labour under sail in the harshest conditions imaginable — and the courage required to save both ship and crew in moments of peril.
Not all of his adventures took place at sea. Shaw also shares colourful tales of the dangers and temptations awaiting the unwary sailor in the world’s ports and docklands.
Set at a time when faster, more reliable steamships were beginning to draw men away from sail, this remarkable memoir serves as a powerful reminder of the extraordinary endurance of ordinary seamen. Poorly paid, often underfed, and risking life and limb each day while shipowners prospered, these men nevertheless retained a fierce pride in their calling.
Many who were forged in the harsh discipline of the merchant service would go on to perform even greater feats of courage — playing a vital role in the survival of the free world during the First and Second World Wars.
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