Learning the Ropes: An Apprentice on the Last of the Windjammers

by Eric Newby

In 1938, Eric Newby signed on as an apprentice on the Finnish four-masted barque Moshulu for a 'round-the-world' voyage transiting between Europe and Australia. It was the toughest imaginable introduction to the sailor's life. Few of the crew spoke English, and he was ordered atop the rigging -- 200 feet above deck -- before he could get out of his best jacket and shoes. More extraordinary still, between his shifts he managed to photograph day-to-day life aboard the antique vessel, and on others like her in various ports of call. Though he did not realize it then, these pictures soon became historic, for with a world war brewing, there would never again be a cavalcade of square riggers such as made the circuit that year. Remarkably, the Moshulu is still afloat and is now a restaurant ship, moored in Philadelphia.  

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction

144 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

George Eric Newby CBE MC (December 6, 1919 – October 20, 2006) was an English author of travel literature.

Newby was born and grew up near Hammersmith Bridge, London, and was educated at St Paul's School. His father was a partner in a firm of wholesale dressmakers but he also harboured dreams of escape, running away to sea as a child before being captured at Millwall. Owing to his father's frequent financial crises and his own failure to pass algebra, Newby was taken away from school at sixteen and put to work as an office boy in the Dorland advertising agency on Regent Street, where he spent most of his time cycling around the office admiring the typists' legs. Fortunately, the agency lost the Kellogg's account and he apprenticed aboard the Finnish windjammer Moshulu in 1938, sailing in what Newby entitled The Last Grain Race (1956) from Europe to Australia and back by way of Cape Horn (his journey was also pictorially documented in Learning the Ropes). In fact, two more grain races followed the 1939 race in which Newby participated, with the last race being held in 1949.

Reviews

[Edward Payne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had just read ‘The Last Grain Race’ so initially I was worried that the opening text was launching into a whole new account of the voyage, but thankfully it did not, and it was interesting to get a little of Newby’s perspective on the whole thing many years on. It is amazing that he managed to take (and bring back) all these photos, especially now that we know just how historic that year’s voyage was.

[Sophie Wiles · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for any budding sailor. What a story!

[Coalbanks · Rating 3 out of 5]

title says it all

[Keith Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb photos, and a unique account of a trip aboard Gustaf Ericson's "Moshulu" (now a floating restaurant in Philadelphia)

[Phil Aldis · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible picture record to sit alongside The Last Grain Race. Absolutely incredible.
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[Huw Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant historical photographic record of 4 masted windjammers in 1939