Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
folio society, hardback, bxd, 232 pages
Description
An engaging and informative first-hand account of the last 'grain race' of maritime history, from respected travel writer Eric Newby. In 1939, a young Eric Newby - later renowned as a travel writer of exceptional talent - set sail aboard Moshulu, the largest sailing ship still employed in the transportation of grain from Australia to Europe. Every year from 1921 to 1939, the vessels involved in the grain trade would strive to find the shortest, fastest passage home - 'the grain race' - in the face of turbulent seas, atrocious weather conditions and hard graft. First published in 1956, 'The Last Grain Race', featuring many photographs from the author's personal collection, celebrates both the spirit of adventure and the thrill of sailing on the high seas. Newby's first-hand account - engaging and informative, with frequent bursts of humour and witty observations from both above and below deck - chronicles this classic sailing voyage of the Twenties and Thirties, and records the last grain race of maritime history.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member John_Vaughan
Another one of this author’s books that did not last nearly long enough – why oh why was Eric not as wordy as say Norman Sherry, or Simon Schama!
Having gone to sea just before my sixteenth birthday, and arrived for the first time in America nine weeks later, I can attest the truth of this
The trip turns out to be (1938) the last of the ‘grain races’ from Australia back to Europe and Moshulu sails magnificently enough to actually win – through storms of force 8 and 9 to near hurricanes. He is thrown onto the deck when “she ships them green” and nearly, more fatally, falls from the top mast when furling.
On his first working day he drops a hammer over the side and his pay is docked. I was once washed off the flying bridge and onto the well-deck in a gale, surfacing from the tons of green, cold water to find myself in the scuppers hanging on with everything – teeth included. My pay was subsequently docked too – I had let go the coffee pot I was carrying, and it joined Eric’s hammer.
Yet the author is wistful in his goodbyes to seamanship, “I look back to my time in her with great pleasure”, perhaps feeling, like me and Conrad, who wrote in Youth - “Wasn’t that he best time when we were young at sea?”
Having gone to sea just before my sixteenth birthday, and arrived for the first time in America nine weeks later, I can attest the truth of this
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account, not the sailing though as by then those beauties of the seas were rarely seen at all. Eric is a strapping eighteen and … perhaps fearing that his first ship, on a world circumnavigation, in a four masted barque would not be challenging enough … he joins a Finnish ship with no knowledge of any of the languages the orders were issued in by his Swedish, Finnish and other polyglot officers. He joins with a wildly inappropriate and insecure Louis Vuitton “folio” sea-chest, is sent immediately up the main-mast to the very truck and trades nicknames as he acquires skills and acceptance, from ”Kossuri” an aristocratic derision to match his trunk, to a more respectful "Strongbody” after the usual first-trip fist fight, that he won.The trip turns out to be (1938) the last of the ‘grain races’ from Australia back to Europe and Moshulu sails magnificently enough to actually win – through storms of force 8 and 9 to near hurricanes. He is thrown onto the deck when “she ships them green” and nearly, more fatally, falls from the top mast when furling.
On his first working day he drops a hammer over the side and his pay is docked. I was once washed off the flying bridge and onto the well-deck in a gale, surfacing from the tons of green, cold water to find myself in the scuppers hanging on with everything – teeth included. My pay was subsequently docked too – I had let go the coffee pot I was carrying, and it joined Eric’s hammer.
Yet the author is wistful in his goodbyes to seamanship, “I look back to my time in her with great pleasure”, perhaps feeling, like me and Conrad, who wrote in Youth - “Wasn’t that he best time when we were young at sea?”
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LibraryThing member jahn
A comic masterpiece that can be enjoyed by readers with no interest in the subject, - if this book doesn't make you laugh often, you're dead (or Finnish). But the title is a misnomer; it should have been something along with: "The adventures of an English ad-man in a real sailing ship full of
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completely crazy Finns." It’s a first-tripper-voyage where everything - for natural reasons - seems doubly strange, that is: CRAZY. In short: as a portrait of life at sea I don't give it that many points, but as literature it’s heartily recommended! Show Less
LibraryThing member EnglishPatient
In recent years I have become involved in sailing tall ships - I've taken part in the Tall Ships Race the last five years in a row - so this book is very special for me. Trying to convey to someone who has never been to sea how it feels to be at the mercy of the elements in one of these amazing
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ships is so difficult that I usually just recommend this book instead. Show Less
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
This is a delightful travel adventure with details of the sort of voyages that are no longer. Yet the young Eric Newby, fresh from a job in the ad business, makes the details come alive with enthusiasm and panache. A great book for lovers of the sea and any who relish a great adventure.
LibraryThing member DramMan
Absorbing, first person narrative of a round trip on a four masted barque, from Ireland to Australia. In many ways a grim tale as the Author, as a junior crew member, obviously worked extremely hard in often treacherous conditions, with basic rations and living in unappealing and often squalid
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conditions. Still, on can only admire the grit and determination that kept the whole enterprise under way, on what turned out to be the last 'race' to bring the first grain of the season from Australia, in 1938-39. A window on a vanished world. Show Less
LibraryThing member farrhon
really? people did that?
LibraryThing member librorumamans
The writing itself is reason enough to pick up this wonderful account. And that records the end of an important maritime era, the age of working windjammers. The Lonely Planet edition I read seems to have been set from a prior edition using optical character recognition; there are a number of odd
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typographical errors. Only the original editions have photographs, so one gets additional pleasure reading this book alongside Newby's 1999 "Learning the Ropes", an album of photographs of the voyage and the crew, some of whom are identified. Show Less
Language
Original publication date
1956
Physical description
288 p.; 7.7 inches
ISBN
1741795265 / 9781741795264