Sailing Ships and sailing Men

As a boy in the 1930's, I knew sailors. Most came home and swore off sailing ships for ever.

Drawn to a wild Baltimore waterfront life, they blew their wages on booze, women and gambling. They were shanghaied or signed onto a ship just to have a home for a time. It was not the sea they were drawn to, but instead, family.

A man, known to do his share high up on the yard arms, had respect.

On land, they were lowly and even tramps. Upon the sea, each a respected seamen! To stand his watch, furl canvas in rain and sleet then lend a hand on the bitter end of a sheet, a new boy on board rose to man and mate.

Good people these, though not in a way most of us would recognise.

Among us modern sailboat sailors we may swagger and tell of hanging on with one hand and reefing a flogging sail with the other.

You could with effort, drag the same story from these square rig sailors, though they wouldn't say they were high in the air above mountainous waves reefing and tying as they rounded the notorious capes, driven by snowy squalls. To be 200 ft in the air in gale winds with a sails snapping and booming making every attempt to throw the watch to deck. Cut from heavy cloth, these men who worked, lived and died at sea.

A seaman I knew and was influenced by, was a Mr. Outabridge who fell from the main yard cracking his skull. He supervise the repair of it and inspired the character Doc in the Novel, Of Mooncursers and Other Spun Yarns By Douglas G. Pollard Sr. on sale @ Lulu.com .

My mothers brother Talmage Williams right after World War one was shanghaied aboard a sailing ship in to the far east. After a two year stint when his ship had not made a U.S. Port. He signed aboard a steam ship to Baltimore. Left in port at Tripoli where he had gotten drunk and spent a couple weeks in jail for getting into a bar room brawl. That was his last duty under sail. Arriving home he lost his seaman's papers for a year for jumping ship. During world war two he stayed at sea almost constantly. He made the one and only Mermanske run through the North Sea hauling gasoline. They were close on the German coast and suffered bombings for several days. Talmage said they watched ships burning in the distance every night and all hands fully expected to die on that trip. It was by luck that they  never heard wine of diving German Stuka dive Bombers.

To find men like this today you have to look to our men fighting on the sands of the middle east. So, every Generation has it's men.

Sailboats Fair and Fine # 35 : read the oldest posts first

The top picture is looking down the Waccamaw river the next one a little sandbar and then my shadow in the water. The last picture should be first its the cut with it's stone banks. The Waccamaw dumps out into Winyah bay. This whole area is breath taking in it's beauty. This is, Gone With the Wind plantation country. Take a look at Georgetown and close you eyes you may see ladies with parasols and young men in white suits riding Tennisee walking horses and elderly couples in carraiges. It's all there behind the darkness of your eyelids. Now and then you may see a for real paddle wheeler round a bend of moss covered trees along the river. Now that's a thrill.


Nov. 5 Wed.


Well it was up early this morning., Last night we anchored on the Ocean side of the inland waterway, in Little River. A beautiful place with Spanish moss hanging off the trees and a few small white houses along the southern shore line. Shrimpers were coming and going early this morning to and from the ocean. We were in the shallows and they rolled us hard. Sleep was out of the question. There was a little fog as I guess there is everywhere along the coast in the fall of the year.
Today was a long canal run, known as the cut, down to the Waccamaw River at mile 375. We had run on engine through high banks with black peat jutting out from the dark rich soil along it's edges. As you go along these channels the scenery changes every couple of hours. For a time you feel as though you are in wild country and then there are homes of the type found along the suburbs of any American city then you break away into a near jungle like swamp. With trees hung in moss and cypress knees all around. Every half submerged log has Tiel Pot turtles lined up on them. They slide off into the black water to be gone.
We bump bumped our way down the river in light rain that seemed so fitting to the southern swamp we made our way through. We were now out of the Waccamaw and into Winyah bay. With sail up we sailed across the bay to Sampit River that winds it's way into Georgetown. We came into the river in front of Georgetown and anchored. We found ourselves in plain view of a steel mill and a town that reminded me though on a much smaller scale of Dundalk Md. Where I grew up. With it's nigh time glow of steel making and the sound of trains shuttling back and forth with loads of glowing red steel. A couple of ships were tied up and were being loaded with steel. They almost looked to be trapped in such a small river port. An old clock tower peeled out the hours day and nigh mixed in with the sound of squalling tires and roaring V eight engines straining to do 0 to 60 on main street in town. Then the sound of a police siren as some teenage boy got himself a summons to go see the judge.