CITY OF ALBERNI:
Canada's Forgotten Schooner, Part Two
| INDEX PAGE |
SV City of Alberni ex- Vigilant |
| Source: "Pumping the Pacific", by Joy and Rod Trail. (Resolution, Number 37, Spring 1996.) |
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On November 10, 1942, City of Alberni left Vancouver
on another
long-distance voyage. This time she carried B.C. lumber
destined for the far away city of
Durban,
South Africa
and she was to travel via the stormy, hazardous
waters off
Cape Horn at the tip of
South America.
(Click for Map).
Among the complement of eighteen
men who signed aboard her, were
Rupert Gillen, who was the First Mate,
and
Frank Culbard
and Jack Ickringill,
who would sail again with Captain
Vosper aboard
Sapperton Park.
Other crew members included
Bill
O'Hagen, an experienced sailor,
Harley
Flagborne, who was making his third voyage aboard the
schooner,
and Rod Trail, a youngster of seventeen,
who was making his first sea voyage as an Ordinary Seamen.
Not only was the schooner going to tackle the extremely difficult waters around Cape Horn, but on this trip she would be risking attacks from enemy submarines as well as surface raiders. Yet, she was not armed at all. She was simply given instructions to maintain radio silence and stay out of sight of land and away from regular shipping lanes. As an incentive to get men to sign on for the dangerous voyage, crew members were promised a War Risk Bonus of $45.00 per month. The Canadian Transport Company were known for providing the best food as possible for their ships, and on the earlier 1941 voyage to Australia, the food, and the cook, Joe Skaling, had been excellent. On this voyage, however, the crew were not so fortunate. City of Alberni had been well- stocked with enough provisions to make her self-sufficient for the length of the trip, but, with no refrigeration, and the difficult conditions ahead, the quality of the food soon deteriorated. Rats were also a problem throughout the voyage and they managed to destroy much of the food. The men's drinking water also had to be rationed as the vessel couldn't carry enough to meet the regulation amount. As was customary on big, ocean-going sailing ships, where everyone's life depended on the sailor next to him doing everything correctly, discipline was very strict. City of Alberni's hull had been specially designed to carry lumber, but she had also been used to carry bulk cargoes, like sugar and copra. Her hull had actually been weakened by the way that the bulk cargoes had pounded against it in heavy seas, and now that condition was about to become evident. A few days after leaving Vancouver, the schooner ran into a bad gale off the mouth of the Columbia River, an area well-known to mariners as hazardous to all ships, and especially sailing ships. The storm soon caused problems with the mainsail and with flooding below decks. The men were already operating the pumps constantly when the stern opened up in several places, letting in more water. City of Alberni was so badly damaged by the storm that she was forced to spend over three weeks in San Francisco being repaired. Click for Map
On December 12th, City of Alberni was on her way
again and she crossed the equator early in January, 1943.
By mid-January, the crew were suffering in the extreme heat. There were leaks in the precious fresh water tanks and many of the men had painful sores from the salt water that they had to use for washing. In addition, they were having to cope with food which was now turning bad. Young Rod Trail wrote in his diary that: "Corn Flakes gave out this morning, bacon smells and the bread is no good....Before we eat any grub, we smell it first, then pick out the best piece. The last guy is out of luck."
On January 23rd, as City of Alberni travelled down
the coast of South America, she was hit by another gale
which damaged another one of her sails and broke the last
of the galley's china plates. By the
time she had entered the stormy waters of the
Roaring Forties, the food situation
had deteriorated even more to the point that the men were
often going hungry.
At the same time, everyone was working long hours in the
cold and wet
to keep City of Alberni from foundering in the pounding
seas.
By February 20th, she had entered the
Howling Fifties, and the ferocious seas were
literally tearing
her apart. Her hatch cover, companionway and galley smokestack
were torn away; many areas below deck were flooded;
the chain on her bowsprit was broken and more of
her sails were damaged. With great effort, the men were able
save the life raft from being dragged overboard. By February 21st,
Captain Vosper had had enough. As he told his hungry, weary
men,
"We have pumped the Pacific through her...damned
if I'll pump the Atlantic!"
The voyage was aborted and
for the next two weeks,
City of Alberni limped towards the safety of
Valparaiso, Chile, arriving safely
on March 12th, 1943.
After much deliberation by her owners, City of Alberni
and her cargo were sold to
Chilean buyers.
Meanwhile, First Mate Rupert Gillen
had been put in charge of getting the
exhausted crew members back to Vancouver.
The men recuperated for a short time
in Chile,
and then began making their way slowly back to Canada overland.
After an arduous journey they arrived back
in Vancouver a year after they had left.
City of Alberni's new owners renamed
her Condor and eventually
sent
her off in 1946 with a cargo of rice destined for
Greece. This time
she made it around Cape Horn, but was so badly damaged that she was
forced to stop in Montevideo,
Uruguay, where the rice was sold and she was repaired.
Her owners then
sent
her to Bahia Blanca,
Argentina, to pick up a new cargo. Sadly, the beautiful
five-masted schooner, one of the last of her kind, was lost
to fire during that voyage.
City of Alberni was the last foreign-going
SOURCES USED:
"Pumping the Pacific: A
Young Seaman's Unusual Sailing Adventure",
by Joy and Rod Trail. Published in Resolution,
Number 37, Spring 1996, pp. 14-18, p.3. Resolution
is published by the
Maritime Museum of British Columbia in Victoria, B.C.
Go to Chuck's OTHER PAGES:
Chuck's pages are maintained by Maureen Venzi and they are part of the Allied Merchant Navy of WWII website. |
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deep-sea commercial sailing vessel to sail
under the Canadian flag.
The government of Canada honoured her service and that of
Canada's other five-masted schooners, with
a commemorative twelve-cent stamp printed in 1977.
In 1974, the
Canadian Transport Company
marked their fiftieth
anniversary by commissioning a model of City of Alberni
and by
having a medallion struck. The company then held
what Captain Halkett later described as one
"helluva a lively reunion party" for all their past
employees who had
sailed on the schooner. It was a great way to remember those
bygone days
when the lovely City of Alberni had graced the oceans.
