The last one sailed from Hull
Garthpool -- The last British Deep Water Square Rigger.
by Chris Coulson
For millennia humans have used boats and rafts to explore their world, to conquer it or to trade with each other. Boats eventually became specialised depending on their use and bigger and better craft meant longer journeys were possible.
From the early days of hopeful drifting through to very modern propulsion methods wind driven boats became very important in the stories of trade, warfare and discovery. The use of iron instead of wood and a more scientific understanding of ship design drove merchant ships to the age of the Windjammers. These large sailing ships of the nineteenth and twentieth century were designed for long distance movement of cargo such as wood, grain, ore, coal etc, round the world usually following the prevailing winds. Indeed 'wind direction' is the reason why the word Windjammer came into use.
Square rigged ships sail more easily when the wind is 'abaft the beam' meaning essentially from behind them. When the wind was hitting the ship towards the bows it forced them to sail closer to the wind, the yards, the wooden spars to which the square sails were attached, had to be hauled towards the mid line of the ship. When pulled round tightly the yards nearly touched the front stays, which held the masts up, and could be jammed up hard against them, hence the term windjammer. Originally an American sailors term and only though reluctantly, through usage, adopted by British seamen.
Being of iron construction Windjammers could be built more cheaply than ships of wood and have a bigger internal cargo space, their tonnage varying from about 1200 to 5000 tons. They also varied in the number of masts they had, usually 3 to 5. The way the square sails were rigged allowed a further classification. Barques, a very efficient design, had triangular jibs on the front stay, and square sails on all masts except the rear one which had the sails along the mid line of the ship. They could be rigged, like most square riggers, with stay sails, smaller triangular sails set between the masts.
The sail arrangement in 3 masted barque.
Square sails on all masts except the stern one.
From the late 19th century Windjammers became the most important ships for carrying long distance cargoes. However, by the turn of the 20th century competition from steam ships became intense. These so called 'steam kettles' had the advantage of not being dependent on the wind which so often prevented the square riggers from rounding Cape Horn from east to west and when there was no wind becoming becalmed, sometimes for weeks. On many occasions when going round Cape Horn they could be beaten by the wind and high seas, which could approach a hundred feet in height, and a ship would have to turn tail and sail west to east to reach their destination, essentially sailing round the bottom of the world. As pressure grew from steam ships the owners of square riggers took more risks with their ships and their crews in an attempt to show a profit. Ships were allowed to load deeper which could have been the result of the ‘Scale of Provisions for Seaman’ in the Merchant Shipping Act of 1906. The deeper loading allowed more cargo to be carried possibly to offset the extra cost of feeding the crew better demanded in the 1906 act. The freeboard could be as little as 1.22 m which was not much in some of the seas they faced. The number of qualified crew began to be compromised as apprentices paid the owner for a berth to obtain sea experience towards becoming an able seaman. Indeed to cut costs even further it was not unusual for an owner to hire quite a number of apprentices.. Wages were also low for the rest of the crew. Conditions and food were poor and comment has been made that it seemed odd that apprentices should ever have joined some ships at all.
Many owners had more than one ship and formed a shipping line. One of interest here is the the ‘Garth Line’. Sir William Garthwaites (1874-1919. The first Baronet of Durham) started the Marine Navigation Company which basically operated from London but did have an office in Montreal, Canada where some of his ships were registered. It has been suggested that company could be regarded as British rather than Canadian, as the ships he owned were built in Britain and bought from British owners and the main operating office was in London. Over the years the company owned 10 ships, all built between 1884 and 1895 and bought between 1915 and 1918. Four were sunk by enemy action in WWI and the others had their names changed after their purchase prefixing it with ‘Garth’. For example the Iquique became the Garthforce, the Invergarry became the Garthgarry and the Juteoplois became the Garthpool I mention these three ships as Captain Stan Butcher, about who I will write about at another time, was on all three when they had incidents at sea. The Garthforce hit an iceberg (when carrying gun powder!), the Garthgarry was shaken badly by a sea quake and later demasted going round the 'Horn' and the Garthpool ran aground on a reef. A fuller first hand description of this latter event was written by Stan Hugill (the Garthpools’ shanty man) in 1930 in the merchant seamen’s magazine 'Sea Breezes' (1). With rising competition from steam ships the windjammers were becoming uneconomic and the owners were under pressure to save money. The dangers of sailing them, especially round Cape Horn, were increased as they were being allowed to load deeper and they also had fewer experienced crew.
The Garthpool was the last of the British square riggers. 'British' has been challenged because she was registered in Montreal, Canada, but while this might be true she was built in Britain for British trade and usually flew the red ensign. The ship was built in 1891 as the Juteopolis by Barrie’s of Dundee for the Calcutta jute trade. It was steel hulled of 2842 gross register tons (grt). This was the internal volume of the ship expressed as tons but could actually carry 5,000 tons of wheat. The net registered tonnage (nrt) was 2652, being the volume of cargo (expressed in tons) that the ship could hold ie the grt minus the space for, accommodation, galley etc. The Garthpool was a four masted Barque (square rigged by definition) whose dimensions were 94.5 x 13.7 x 7.7 m. It was the largest of the ships owned by the Marine Navigation Company. The Juteopolis was sold to Bliss of London in 1899 and then to Anglo American Oil in 1900 when the jute trade came under pressure. It was sold to G.Windram of Liverpool in 1911 for £6,500 and finally to Sir William Garthwaites’ Marine Navigation Company in 1917 who renamed her the Garthpool. It was sold to the Marine Navigation Company for very much more than £6,500 because the first world war put the price of ships up. Her Master David Thomson (considered a real ‘shell back’) was regarded as a fine sailing ship master having spent all his career in these ships and had never ever served in a ‘Steam Kettle’, a derogatory name given by sailors in square riggers for a steam ship.
The Garthpool (Ex Juteopolis)
Photo Licensed Under Creative Commons
Stanley Francis Butcher (B 1905. D 1966) was a Hull man who joined his first sailing ship the Garthforce at Birkenhead in 1921 as an Apprentice aged 15. The owners 'duty' was to teach apprentices some navigation and seamanship but this seldom seemed to have occurred. The Garthforce set sail with seven apprentices who joined the ship a little while before she sailed. Happily this allowed them to learn something of the ship before they left Liverpool for Sydney, Australia. Although the Garthforce carried seven apprentices it had fourteen Able Seaman and the master Captain John Henry was satisfied with his crew, several of who were from Hull. On January 27th 1922 in poor visibility the lookout spotted a 1.5 mile long, 600 foot high iceberg dead ahead but it was too late to avoid it. The ship hit it with considerable force and tons of ice fell onto her deck and the bow sprit was badly bent. The ship took on water at the bow but luckily the bulkhead held it. Much of the cargo, including gun powder, had to be jettisoned, After fifteen days drifting at sea she was sighted by the Unden from Goteborg in Sweden who took her under tow. Some adventure for the young apprentices on their first sea voyage! Older crew members put this misfortune down to the killing of an albatross some days earlier, the bird believed to hold the souls of dead seamen.
The Garthforce(Ex Iquique) a three masted barque
Photo Courtesy of State Library of South Australia
The Garthforce in Durban after hitting the iceberg
(Photo from Wind Jammers of the horn. by A G Course)
In the days of windjammers some store was set by having a Master and crew who could get the most out of their ship. The skill of the Master gained over his career and the skill of the crew was obviously important in this. This was very evident in the annual
(though unofficial) Great Grain Race for the fastest passage from South Australia to the Lizard Point off Cornwall. In 1928 a silver cup was donated to the winning ship. Many owners told their Captains not to race as loss of sails and masts was common and costly. However, they didn't mind if one of their ships won!
On the 23th Oct 1929 the Garthpool sailed from Alexandre Dock in Hull, in ballast, bound for southern Australia to load wheat. The Hull tug Seaman took the ship out of the Humber and down towards Beachy Head. A gale warning received on the tug radio meant they anchored for the night off Great Yarmouth. Next day they continued the tow to Beachy Head where the tug cast off and the Garthpool hoisted sails and made towards the Western Approaches, that rolling or rough area of sea where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Channel. For some reason blocks, chains and a yard came down from a mast nearly hitting the crew though a lucky young seaman aloft did not fall as he was on the rigging above the area. October 27th saw the ship sailing down the channel with a fair wind. Once clear and turning south they encountered several days of head winds towards the Bay of Biscay but on this voyage this notorious area of sea was kind to them. When the wind did turn the yards were squared making sailing easier. Much work was done on renewing or maintaining the ship gear including the foot ropes on which the men stood to alter the sails. A breakage of one of these could send a man to his death on the deck or overboard to drown.
The Garthpool manoeuvred by tugs.
Photo Courtesy of State Library of South Australia
Thursday 7th November west of Morocco they sighted Puerto Santo and later on Madeira to starboard which was apparently near enough to see the town of Funchal. Sailing south south west at a good speed of between 12 and 18 knots maintenance work continued on the ship which, on the 8th November, passed between Palma on the port side and Tenerife on the starboard. Stan Hugill (Shanty Man and Able Seaman) reports, in his diary, seeing the Dragons Peak (Mount Teide) on Tenerife, a quiescent 3718 m volcano that erupted only 20 years before the Garthpool passed it in 1929. The base of the volcano actually sits 3800 m below sea level giving it a total height of some 7500 m making it the third highest volcano in the world.
The 8th to the 10 November saw the Garthpool approaching the Cape Verde archipelago, a collection of some 10 islands. On the 9th of November decks were scrubbed and since the Captain kept chickens who roamed freely the mess they made was cursed by the crew. The course was S.W. by S and SSW with the expectation of sighting Cape Verde the next day, on Sunday10th November. Apparently not much work was done on this Sunday with the crew generally chatting. Sal Island was abeam (I assume the port side) at 4.30 pm. Perhaps the intention was to sail leaving Boa Vista Island to port and then Maio island to starboard but this can only be supposition.
November 11th 1929 an armistice day service was held on the poop at 9.30 a.m. ships time, 11 a.m. GMT. The ensign was dipped and a two minutes silence held. The port watch came on duty in the early evening leaving the starboard watch to turn in. At 9.25 p.m. the cry went up 'All hands on deck' and the starboard watch scrambled from their bunks. As the port watch was already hauling the yards round a cry went up from the forecastle head look-out 'Breakers ahead'. The ship started to turn but too late and the lookout cried 'Surf ahead' and with that the ship crashed into the reef leaning to port. Stan Hugill wrote later 'Ahead and to leeward of us a huge mountain reared itself --- with its sides enveloped in a misty haze'. The crew rushed to the shelter of the Donkey House, one of the deck
Cape Verde Islands with reef and possible Garthpool track
(Map Licensed Under Creative Commons. Legends by the Author 2018)
accommodation houses, in the fear of rigging, spars, blocks or even masts coming down on them. The exact details of what happened varies a little from writer to writer, Alfred J Pazolt (Purser) gives a more lurid or damning account (2) than Stan Hugill but not being a seaman as such perhaps his sensibilities were aroused more.
With a grinding noise the swell and trade winds pushed the barque further onto the reef which then held her fast. The Garthpool was now even more on its port side and was taking in water quickly so Captain Thompson ordered 'Abandon ship'.
Baixo Joao Valente reef from the air
The ship leaning to port made launching the starboard life boat difficult and they had to slide it down the ships' side. In A J Pazolts' account he commends Stan Butcher the second mate for his handling of this. Although abandoning the ship at 10.30 p.m. was a calm procedure with Captain Thompson and some crew going into the port lifeboat the starboard lifeboat was became too crowded and some crew went into the water to go to the port boat! In the dark night the boats hoisted their sails with the intention of sailing to Sal Rei on the Island of Boa Vista. However, they soon ran into surf which seemed to have no way through it so they quickly furled the sails and pulled away from this dangerous area with oars. One boat lit a flare to locate the other boat which answered with a flare. The boats came together and anchored for the night but little sleep could be got in the cold wet miserable conditions.
At dawn they rowed toward the island which was only about one mile away and as they approached the shore two natives swam out and gestured to them to row further in and anchor. Two small native craft came out to them to transfer them ashore. However, Captain Thompson and the second mate Stan Butcher with three or four crew went back to try to board the Garthpool and retrieve equipment and food. The sea conditions prevented this and they were forced ashore further along the coast giving them a seven mile walk back to the rest of the crew. They arrived extremely tired. The place they had landed was Canatao a very small habitation on Boa Vista island and indeed the nearby fishing village was only a five or six adobe houses, not quite the metropolis from where they could find help. The natives started to arrive and brought them ' Champaign cider ' to drink as water was scarce on the island. They had previously looted this from the Axbe-Mendi, a Spanish steam ship wreck, which carried 100,000 bottles of it. However, on seeing the sailors clothes spread out to dry they demanded 'payment' for the drink and food and the crew were forced to barter their clothes! By evening a lot of the crew were drunk and bawling out sea shanties after which they curled up on the beach to sleep it off. During their time on the island there seemed to have been unrest among the Garthpool crew and among the and the locals. A French (Canadian) sailor, Jean Gloro, stole money and other effects from Captain Thompson and was lucky to not to 'loose' his life when the crew found him hiding. A.J. Pazoly (2) recounts that Captain Thompson, initially a power house of a man, became rather melancholy when he realised his ship could not be rescued!
A fine pen and ink drawing of the Garthpool done and signed by Stan Hugill on the back of a chart after the ship was lost. The crew and some passengers have signed it on the right. One of a limited edition of 250 copies done by Captain Antony Butcher (Stan Buchers' son). Property of the author.
Next morning it was decided to go back to the Garthpool to get stores etc but they found the natives had stolen the oars and rowlocks from the life boats and these had to be bought back from them. Eventually the ship was reached but they found it had been largely stripped by the locals overnight! The extent of this varies between writers. Being marooned in this isolated place Captain Thompson decided that they had to get help so he and second mate Stan Butcher plus a Portuguese Customs official rode for 6 hours on donkeys 17 miles across the mountains to Sal Rei at the north end on of the island. They arranged the rescue of the other crew and three days later a cutter appeared in the bay where the crew were and at 8 p.m took the stranded sailors and passengers to Sal Rei, the capital of Boa Vista. Here, in this white-washed town, they were fed and watered. The next day, November 17th, the cutter took them to St Vincent in the Genadines 130 miles away where they were well accommodated in John Oliveiras' London Bar, which belonged to a British expatriate. They were shipped home from St Vincent, Captain Thompson, Second mate Butcher, three pursers and the apprentices and passengers on the liner Avelona Star and the next day the rest of the crew and passengers on the Deseado, a Royal Mail Packet ship. So ended the voyage of the last British square rigger!
Falkland Island stamp. Issues 1989. Part of a ship series.
Addendum:
The Cape Verde area was surveyed in the late 1800s but updated, though apparently not very well, by the Portuguese in the early 1900s. In fact, according to a British Admiralty Pilot, Notice to Mariners (4) Boa Vista island was actually two miles east of its charted position. If any reefs’ position was plotted relative to the island then the position of the reef could have been charted wrongly. Of course new mapping technologies will have hopefully corrected this. Mind you a two mile error in navigation would still be a close shave considering the sea room which was available. It was not that the reef and dangers of the area were unknown as 20 ships had been wrecked in the Archipelago in as many years, and indeed the British ship The Lady Burgess sank on the reef in 1806 and not forgetting the grounded Spanish steamship which could have mislead the Garthpool crew in 1929.
Boa Vista island with the Joao Valente reef to the south west
The Garthpool seems to have foundered on Baixo Joao Valente reef. I'm indebted to Captain Julian Burgess, Master of the MV Saga Sapphire for his help in identifying this reef. The reef (or Lenton or Letton Rock on a 1747 French chart) is a steep sided undersea volcanic mount which seems to had an above water peak of some 100 metres high. It has area of some 1000-2000 sq km and lies about 12 nm south west of Boa Vista island and measures about 27 km (13 nm) N/S and about 14.5 km (7.8 nm) E/W. The distance from Sal Island to the Baixo Joao Valente reef is about 67 nm which was covered in about 5 hrs. so the Garthpools average speed was about 13.5 knots.
About 2000 BC the reef was still an island. Having a 100 m above water high point would seem to fit with Stan Hugills’ description of the Garthpool’s grounding as he describes a huge mountain suddenly appearing to leeward and shrouded in mist, presumably the above sea part of the reef. This 'peak' seems to have now collapsed as I can now find no reference to it. This information is interesting for the following reason. The ‘peak’ is likely to have been on the rim of the volcanic sea mount. A two mile error in the position of the reef may have put the original track of the Garthpool to the west of the reef. However, I think that might be wishful thinking as the ship should really have been much further to the west to ensure proper sea room. A course more to the west may have saved the ship and as Captain Burgess, of the MV Saga Sapphire, said this area is not a safe place to transit.
However, in defence of the Garthpool’s crew in 1929 the watch could have been mislead by the sighting of a Spanish steamer thought to be underway (no riding lights?) but as it turned out was aground and had been for some time. This may not cover why they had come so near to the reef and a navigational error may have been made. Now it not easy to distil what happened to the navigation during the last sailing days of the Garthpool but if there was an error it had catastrophic results.
So what could have caused the Garthpool to sail into the reef? Latitude is where you are north or south on the earth is ascertained usually by measuring the angle of the sun at noon. Longitude (measure where you are west to east) is very much more time dependent. The time is taken from the ships chronometer but ships with wireless could check their time against Greenwich Mean Time (now called Zulu time) but the Garthpool carried no radio. An error of angle or indeed the time when the site was taken can produce navigational errors. Noon sun sites for longitude are the most inaccurate as the difficulty is knowing when the sun is at its zenith and timing in the longitude can affect the calculation of the ships longitude position. A difference between taking the azimuth and time of 1 second is about 2 miles of longitude at the equator. In the deep ocean this might be acceptable but in a reef strewn area? We forget in these days of GPS the skill required to stand on moving deck to sight the sun accurately and at the same instant note the time. On ships like the Garthpool it would be the Master who was in charge of navigation though occasionally the first mate may have done the job. Usually the officers (First and Second mate) would have sited the sun or other celestial bodies. Captain Thompson was an experienced seaman and had been 'this way' before so perhaps this kind of error can be discounted or can it as nevertheless the ship did hit the reef.
There is the possible contribution of the Island of Boa Vista being in the 'wrong' place on the chart due to poor Portuguese mapping and the possibility that if the reef was measured from the island it could have been positioned on the chart wrongly by 2 miles. Even if this was so it would be a brave Captain that took his ship that close to danger. However, there is another possibility or a least perhaps a contributory factor.
While between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn the winds and currents are to a large extend predictable on the grand scale they can vary with temperature and time of year. This is due to the Intercontinental Convergence Zone (ICZ) moving north and south. The ICZ is an area between two large upward movements of air called the Hadley cells which affect winds and surface currents. While the surface currents north of the equator go clockwise and the ones south of it go anticlockwise there is the Equatorial Counter Current (ECC) that moves west to east between 3 degrees and 10 degrees north with a width of about 300 km. Had this current affected the Garthpool it would have pushed it eastward and perhaps into the track of the reef. had the ship been navigated to the west of the reef. However, the Baixo Joao Valente reef is 15 degrees north which might apparently put the ship away from the ECC. Mind you the surface currents within the general clockwise circulation in the North Atlantic are rather variable and interestingly the west flowing equatorial current seems to be deflected east at the end of the year by the north eastern part of South America (3). This eastward movement may have been more critical if Captain Thompson planned a track to leave the island of Maio to starboard.
(1) Sea Breezes 1930 Vol XIII No 125 & 126. University of Hull, Maritime History Institute.
(2) A J Pazoly Chapter 25. 'Last of the Garthpool' in 'Epics of the square rigged ships'. Charles W. (editor) Domville-fife
(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_ current NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio)
(4) Cruising World, January1988 page 63
Chris Coulson
I gratefully acknowledge the help of Jan Perrin in proof reading this manuscript and Capt J Burgess (MV Saga Sapphire) for helping me locate the reef.
March 2018