I saw three ships come sailing in...

For the past month or so, I have been doing quite a number of shipping deals, mostly involving LNG carriers, oil tankers and those large container ships - rust-encrusted and nomadic metal coffins bobbing on the high seas carrying everything and anything to anywhere and everywhere.

I never see the actual ship that is the subject of a week's worth of planning and anxiety, but I clink my glass of complimentary champagne in the early hours of the morning in the comfort of my office when I am informed that all is well, and all parties are happy.

Just a couple of days ago, I glanced into the newspapers and saw that one of the "Monsters" I helped "deliver" into the loving arms of a consortium of banks had sailed into the headlines. For a while, as I looked at the picture of the rolling iron behemoth, I must confess Reader that I was actually impressed...

ULSAN, South Korea, Sep 09, 2007 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Overseas Shipholding Group, Inc.
Overseas Shipholding Group, Inc
Last: 59.07+0.25+0.43%4:03pm 11/20/2007Delayed quote data
Sponsored by:
OSG 59.07, +0.25, +0.4%) announced today the naming of the LNG Carrier Al Gattara, heralding a new generation of Q-Flex Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) carriers - the world's safest, most advanced and largest ships to transport this critical energy source. This vessel is the first in a series of four sister ships to be delivered to OSG Nakilat, the joint venture between OSG and Qatargas Transport Company (Nakilat).

...and then I snapped out of my delirium! Thank God! You can breath a sigh of relief Reader. The riverman~~~ is safe and well!

Lets get one thing straight! I do like ships... but ONLY the ones with SAILS!

Yes, the riverman~~~ is a romantic at heart, and if you know me at all you would know that I love all things from and of the "Age of Sail" (the period between 1739-1815) which also constitutes (in my humble opinion) the height of the 'age of fighting sail' i.e. the age of sailing warships.

This week I would like to pay homage to the great Age of Sail (a wondrous period for all lovers of things maritime and nautical)... more so, since this coming weekend I will be at Portsmouth Harbour visiting the HMS Victory - one of the best known and loved warships ever ... (more on that later!)...

However, instead of plodding through the history of the period which you can easily obtain anywhere else on the web from cleverer and more learned enthusiasts than me (which is something the more doggedly inclined of you will undoubtedly set about doing), I propose to focus on three ships I believe sum up all I that I love and that feeds my imagination about the period.

HMS Endeavour

This was a true explorer's ship, and was captained by Captain James Cook, probably best known for his exploration in the Aussie-New-Zealand area. To the world, the Endeavour's voyage was a scientific expedition to observe an eclipse of Venus, June 1769, but secretly it was a commission by the English admiralty to find a mysterious southern continent, which had already been discovered and visited by Dutch explorers between 1605 - 1636. This secret commission effectively led Cook to explore New Zealand, Tasmania and Australia.

The ship nearly went down on the coral reefs north of Botany Bay, and many of her crew died of fever when she headed further north to Batavia (i.e. Indonesia), the political and commercial centre of the VOC in Asia, before finally heading for home.

The Endeavour was a solid, broad beamed and shallow draught Whitby collier, an all round excellent ship for exploration as fully recognized by James Cook, who said "A better ship for such service I never could wish for".

This ship is very special to me as it was also the first ship that I ever built a wood model of. It was the first time I tackled a wooden model, and it was a little bit of an exploratory voyage of sorts for me into the splinter-filled world of carpentry. It took up most of my summer holidays for a year and was an exercise in the virtue it was named after. It wasn't the best wooden model ship ever made, but it is still standing and holding sound on a shelf at home.

HMS Bounty

Ah! Notoriety... Notoriety! Adventure and Mutiny! The Bounty has it all!! The tale of the Mutiny on HMS Bounty has been told and retold through the ages, with some understandable embellishment.

You must have heard of the grand saga Reader. Why! The cast of characters on board HMS Bounty was remarkable as the ship itself.

You had William Bligh, the Captain of the expedition, who was born September 9, 1754. He was somewhat heavily built and below average in height (a little bit Napolenic too!), with black hair, blue eyes and a pale complexion. He gained a reputation in the Royal Navy for having a volatile temper and he used foul language when angered (and according to ship records, that happened very often!).

Starring opposite Bligh was Fletcher Christian, who was born in Cumberland on September 15, 1764, was from a well-to-do family and was a little bit of a Mam's-boy as well! He went to sea at the age of sixteen, and two years later he sailed aboard HMS Cambridge where he met William Bligh for the first time. Christian was about five feet nine inches tall (I guess sailors in those days were pretty short!) with a dark complexion and (according to the dockyard wenches) well muscled. He was sometimes described as swashbuckling, a slack disciplinarian, a great favourite with the ladies, conceited but also mild, generous, open and humane.

HMS Bounty sailed from Spithead, England on December 23, 1787 with Bligh and a crew of 45 men bound for Tahiti. Their mission was to collect breadfruit plants to be transplanted in the West Indies as cheap food for the slaves. After collecting those plants, Bounty was underway toward home, when, on the morning of April 28, 1789, Fletcher Christian and part of the crew mutinied, took over the ship, and set the Captain and 18 members of the crew adrift in the ship’s 23-foot launch (a small boat) which according to Bligh, did not even contain enough food and water for the men on board.

The cruelty of Bligh was blamed for the mutiny. Once cast off his ship, the captain sailed the launch and 17 of the crew 3618 miles back to civilization. The mutineers took HMS Bounty back to Tahiti, and, with 6 Polynesian men and 12 women, took the ship to the isolated site at Pitcairn Island. After burning the ship, they established a settlement and colony on Pitcairn Island that still exists.

My adventure with the HMS Bounty started at the age of nine, when I read a book which featured Fletcher Christian's exploits and told of Captain Bligh's cruelty to his men on board. At that time I was just interested in the romance of a mutiny and the exploration of Tahiti and the outlying islands close to it. Years later I visited the greenhouses in Kew in London and saw first hand the almost- fabled "breadfruit trees" that Bligh brought back from Tahiti.

HMS Victory

HMS Victory is the Royal Navy's most famous warship. She is the world's oldest commissioned ship and a wonderful memorial to Vice Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, probably Britain's greatest Naval hero. She stands proud in her home in Portsmouth, No. 2 dry dock, and remains one of the most famous warships ever built.

Built between 1759-1765, HMS Victory was a first-rate, "ship-of-the-line" (meaning: a warship armed powerfully enough to take a position in the line of battle).

In 1805, Nelson on board his flagship, HMS Victory, led 27 British ships into battle off Cape Trafalgar against a much larger combined French and Spanish fleet. With Nelson's inspired leadership, the British won a great victory and the Battle of Trafalgar has become a defining moment in British history. So defining that a massive memorial to Nelson stands in Trafalgar Square today. Nelson however paid the ultimate price - he was struck by a single bullet as he paced the quarterdeck with his captain, Thomas Hardy, and in true mythological fashion, he survived just long enough to learn the outcome of the battle.

HMS Victory is a wondrous work of engineering and art. Three gun decks bristling with cannons on both sides, 3 main masts and a bowsprit... Over 26 miles of rigging and nearly 5,500 metres of canvas in the 37 sails, the largest of which is still in existence in a museum in Portsmouth (complete with over 90 shot holes). The ship was built from mainly oak, but also elm and fir, from an estimated 6000 trees.

The thing that captures my imagination most vividly is the Victory´s main guns and how they may have worked in action. The Victory had three types of guns. There were 12 pounders (on the top deck), 24 pounders (on the middle deck) and 32 pounders (from the bottom deck). The biggest gun was called a carronade and named aptly, "The Smasher". Once the powder hole had been filled, it was fired by a slow match or flintlock. The cartridge and shot were laid by a rammer after cartridge fragments had been removed by the worm, and the damp sponge had put out any sparks there might be in the barrel.

Ah yes, the riverman~~~ has spent many hours in maritime museums and nautical-souvenir shops gazing at models of this particular ship. The Victory is definitely my favourite ship and sums up all that captures me about the age of fighting sail. It jolts me when I close my eyes and imagine tired and grimy men running between the ship's guns under-deck, heaving sweat-drenched pound-shot balls in quick sucession into steaming cannon barrels... or the whiz and tear of chain-shot against the smoke stained sails... the taste of the salt of the sea mingled with the salt of sweat... and all the time the creak and grind of the iron bones of the ship as it rocks and rolls over choppy waves...

...and then I open my eyes and find myself staring at a 60-page sale agreement for a container ship ploughing it's course through the waters of Korea, and breathe in deeply and sigh!

Well Reader... such is life! Guess I will put away my compass and sextant for today, throw down my anchor and pull out my Chitty!

~~~