James Craig - Life on the Ocean Wave

We left early to take a train to Sydney passing through the acrid smoke drifting east from the worst bushfires in a decade in the Blue Mountains. A short walk across Pyrmont Bridge took us to the James Craig Tall Ship on Wharf 7.

A crowd of some sixty passengers waited at the quayside, including a group of elderly men all up for adventure with the rest of us on this sunny, blue sky day.

James Craig , launched as Clan Macleod, was built by Bartram, Haswell Co. in Sunderland, England in 1874. Her name was changed to James Craig in 1905.
 
For 26 years she plied the trade routes of the world carrying general cargoes visiting New York, Portland, Rio de Janeiro, the coast of Peru, London, and beyond, during which period she rounded Cape Horn 23 times.
 
 In 1900 she was purchased by Mr J J Craig of Auckland, New Zealand, who used her on trans-Tasman trade routes as a general cargo carrier. In 1911 she was laid up because increasing competition from steam ships made sailing vessels uneconomical.

She was then stripped and used as a copra hulk in New Guinea. After the First World War there was an acute shortage of cargo ships and she was bought by the well-known Australian jam manufacturer, Henry Jones IXL.

This gave James Craig a new lease of life after being towed from New Guinea to Sydney for re-fitting. Her return to service was brief because in 1925 she was reduced to a coal hulk at Recherche Bay, Tasmania. In 1932 she was abandoned and became beached after breaking her moorings in a storm. She remained beached until 1972 when volunteers from the Sydney Heritage Fleet re-floated her.

In 1973 she was towed to Hobart where temporary repairs were carried out. She was towed to Sydney in 1981 and restoration work commenced. James Craig‘s restored hull was re-launched in February 1997.

Originally the James Craig had a crew of 15, but in modern times it now needed a crew of 30, partly due to health and safety regulations that were non-existent in the late 1800s. All the crew are volunteers, men and women, young and old, working in the Sydney Heritage Fleet that costs $1Million annually to run.

The captain stood midships and introduced our day and the crew who set about casting off and co-ordinating the tricky manoeuvers with the Sydney Heritage Fleet tug to nose us out into the harbour where we used an auxiliary motor to cruise under the Sydney Harbour Bridge and past the Sydney Opera House.

Our onboard doctor solicitously walked the decks offering slip, slop and slap sunlotion and seasickness tabs. A minstrel had started off the day with his banjo strumming “Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay.”

The aftdeck was the control centre with its bosun spinning the wheel, the captain’s son sounding ship’s bells, and captain singing out the orders.

Midships, we had the deckhouse for administration; and the stairs leading down into the ship’s quarters with rudimentary immigrant box cabin, galley tables, the kitchen, and the heads (all top notch).

 After coffee and excellent banana bread, we moved to the foredeck of the ship to watch the crew scurrying around preparing for the open seas. The ship’s radio crackled and permission was given from harbour control to do a practice man overboard emergency drill. 

A dummy was thrown overboard with a lifering and a marker buoy and it then took ten minutes  - someone commented: "enough time for the sharks to pounce!" - to get the ship’s lifeboat racing to the scene whilst we all pointed to help the lifeboat find the ‘victim’.

Having cleared the harbour, we watched the crew as they scaled the rigging and released the sails to be hauled into taut shape by the team below. An enthusiastic American lady with a beret enlisted the passengers’ help as all sang sea shanties and hauled on the ropes. 

The sails caught the wind; seabirds, including an albatross glided past us, and we enjoyed the rocking of the boat as it ploughed through the waves.

After we had signed pages of insurance claptrap, the ship’s purser, a delightful Greek-Australian lady, issued our tickets for the mast climb.

First up was Gen, who donned the harness and climbed to below the crow’s nest by clipping safety straps alternately onto the rigging and the stays. Keeping watch as Gen hauled herself up, was Eva, a Dutch-Australian patiently instructing.

Safely back on deck, it was Robert’s turn to clamber up and enjoy the view.

Back on deck, thigh muscles exercised, we had an excellent packed lunch, followed by a leisurely stroll around the deck to inspect the origin of sayings, such as chock-a-block (when the block and tackle gets jammed) or let the cat out of the bag (when the cat-o-nine-tails is taken from its red bag).

In the afternoon, the captain turned the boat for home - much activity across the ship as sails flapped and turned, ropes were hauled, commands sang out and the sun switched from port to starboard.

For a while all machine sound was turned off: we spent time just sailing pure and simple, without the sound of the generator,  just the lapping of the waves.

Then came time to furl the sails: the crew and passengers hauled on the ropes again, enthused by some lively music from the minstrel; whilst hardy crew climbed high into the rigging.

The American crewwoman showed us contracts from the 1870s and 1900s which showed how the young age of the crew in the 1800s was replaced by older crew in their 50s in the post WW1 years. Ship’s provisions improved too, from hard tack to bread and marmalade.

We motored back into the harbour, hooting at fleets of yachts competing in races, then met up with the tug to guide us in. As we left the boat, the minstrel serenaded us with Waltzing Matilda in jazzy banjo style.

What a great day enjoying life on the ocean wave!