The Last Grain Race (1956)

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 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 for the replacement cost. 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?”

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 ships is so difficult that I usually just recommend this book instead. ( )

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 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! ( )