3. The clipper barque Otago, Conrad’s first and only command. He described her as ‘an Arab steed in a string of cart horses’. Certainly she was an elegant little ship, built by the famous Glasgow shipbuilder Alexander Stephen. She survived intact until 1937 and some of her ribs are still visible at her final resting place near Hobart, Tasmania. (Photo © The State Library of Victoria)
4. Joseph Conrad later in life. He retired from the sea in 1892 but often toyed with the idea of returning, at one point coming close to buying a rather decrepit old tall ship. Common sense eventually prevailed. (Photo © New York Public Library)
5. James Fenimore Cooper during his time in the US Navy. Like many other Americans, he had been outraged by the British Navy’s treatment of American sailors who were seized and press-ganged to fight in the Napoleonic Wars with alarming regularity. He had experienced the injustice of this treatment while serving aboard the merchant vessel Sterling and this voyage not only inspired him to join the US Navy, but later provided him with a rich source of inspiration when writing his nautical novels. (Engraving courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
6. The dramatic battle between the HMS Shannon and the USS Chesapeake. This was one of the few British successes of the war of 1812. Cooper had previously served under Captain Lawrence of the Chesapeake, who died in this battle. (Painting © Christopher Wilhelm Eckersberg/Villy Fink Isaksen)
7. Ernest Hemingway poses with a giant marlin he landed during the 1934 season. For those who are not au fait with sports fishing, the rather obscene-looking codpiece hanging from his waist is his ‘fighting belt’ where the fishing rod is secured while you battle with the fish. (Photo © National Archives and Records Administration)
8. Hemingway poses aboard his yacht, the Pilar, with a gun. A mixture of automatic weapons and booze made fishing with Hemingway an interesting pursuit. On one occasion he was hospitalised after shooting himself in the leg. Hemingway generally used the machine gun to keep sharks at bay while reeling in marlin, but the upshot was sometimes simply a bloodbath. (Photo © National Archives and Records Administration)
9. Hemingway aboard Pilar in later life looking suitably dazed and confused. He was never the same after his double aeroplane crash in 1954, and his last trip on Pilar took place in 1960. (Photo © National Archives and Records Administration)
10. Jack London and his wife Charmian in Honolulu. London took up the fledgling sport of surfing during his stay on Hawaii and got so badly sunburnt that he became seriously ill. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
11. Jack London the young writer poses at his desk at his home at Glen Ellen, California, in 1905. It was around this date that the grand plan for a world cruise aboard the Snark was formulated. (Photo © Century Company, New York)
12. The building of the Snark, or ‘London’s Folly’ as she was labelled by the press. Here London is seen inspecting her frames, which were supposed to be of oak but somehow ended up being pine. (Photo © Century Company, New York)
13. The battle of Basque Roads in which young Frederick Marryat played an important role. In this picture, the French fleet lies aground and utterly helpless while Marryat’s ship Imperieuse, with Lord Cochrane in command, waits for reinforcements to come and finish them off. The reinforcements never came. (Painting © Louis Philippe Crepin, courtesy of World Imaging)
14. Determined, self assured and extremely charming, Frederick Marryat as a young man. (Painting © John Simpson, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
15. John Masefield in 1916 aged 38 when he was already a successful author and had long since turned his back on the sea. He always felt something of a fraud when it came to the sea, but his short ocean-going career gave him plenty to work with for the rest of his subsequent literary career. (Photo © Library of Congress)
16. The four-masted barque Gilcruix. It was aboard this big iron ship that Masefield served his apprenticeship and here that he learned to love and hate the sea in equal measure. On Masefield’s voyage, the Gilcruix took a terrible battering and was over a month getting around Cape Horn. Owned by the White Star Line, she was later sold to the Germans and renamed Barmbek. She was broken up in 1923. (Photo © State Library of Victoria)
17. A whaling crew do battle with a sperm whale, demonstrating precisely the kind of risks men such as Melville had to take in order to secure their prize. (Print from the author’s collection)
18. Herman Melville in 1860. By this time, his biggest hit Ty-Pee had been in print for well over a decade. Melville cut a disillusioned figure, frustrated at the lukewarm reception of his later works, among them Moby Dick. When the latter was published in 1851, he was convinced it would be a huge success and was left bitterly disappointed. It was only after his death that the book received the acclaim it deserved. (Photo © Library of Congress)
19. Arthur Ransome: fisherman, sailor and foreign correspondent. By 1923, when he took to the sea in earnest, Ransome was so fed up with politics that all he really wanted to do was escape. (Photo © Arthur Ransome Society)
20. Tobias Smollett: fiery, irritable and generally armed with a pen as sharp as a razor blade. He used this to good effect to pour scorn upon the Royal Navy after serving as surgeon during the catastrophic siege of Carthagena. (Painting © Culture Club/Getty)
21. Robert Louis Stevenson painted in 1892 when he had settled in his final resting place of Samoa. He died there two years later aged 44. Stevenson was dogged by illness throughout his entire life and spent much of his time at death’s door. The artist has conveyed his frailty very successfully. (Painting © Girolamo Nerli, courtesy of ArtMechanic)
1. Erskine Childers’ wife Molly (left) and co-conspirator Mary Spring Rice (right) aboard the Childers’ beautiful Colin Archer-designed yacht Asgard during her daring gun-running trip into Howth. The guns are German Mauser rifles and the aim was to provide armed support for the Irish rebels. (Photo © The Board of Trinity College, Dublin)
2. Erskine and Molly Childers aboard their yacht Asgard. Erskine was one of the true pioneers of yacht cruising and his trail-blazing voyage through the North Sea to the Baltic in 1897 was an integral part of the plot of The Riddle of the Sands. (Photo © The Board of Trinity College, Dublin)
3. The clipper barque Otago, Conrad’s first and only command. He described her as ‘an Arab steed in a string of cart horses’. Certainly she was an elegant little ship, built by the famous Glasgow shipbuilder Alexander Stephen. She survived intact until 1937 and some of her ribs are still visible at her final resting place near Hobart, Tasmania. (Photo © The State Library of Victoria)
4. Joseph Conrad later in life. He retired from the sea in 1892 but often toyed with the idea of returning, at one point coming close to buying a rather decrepit old tall ship. Common sense eventually prevailed. (Photo © New York Public Library)
5. James Fenimore Cooper during his time in the US Navy. Like many other Americans, he had been outraged by the British Navy’s treatment of American sailors who were seized and press-ganged to fight in the Napoleonic Wars with alarming regularity. He had experienced the injustice of this treatment while serving aboard the merchant vessel Sterling and this voyage not only inspired him to join the US Navy, but later provided him with a rich source of inspiration when writing his nautical novels. (Engraving courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
6. The dramatic battle between the HMS Shannon and the USS Chesapeake. This was one of the few British successes of the war of 1812. Cooper had previously served under Captain Lawrence of the Chesapeake, who died in this battle. (Painting © Christopher Wilhelm Eckersberg/Villy Fink Isaksen)
7. Ernest Hemingway poses with a giant marlin he landed during the 1934 season. For those who are not au fait with sports fishing, the rather obscene-looking codpiece hanging from his waist is his ‘fighting belt’ where the fishing rod is secured while you battle with the fish. (Photo © National Archives and Records Administration)
8. Hemingway poses aboard his yacht, the Pilar, with a gun. A mixture of automatic weapons and booze made f
ishing with Hemingway an interesting pursuit. On one occasion he was hospitalised after shooting himself in the leg. Hemingway generally used the machine gun to keep sharks at bay while reeling in marlin, but the upshot was sometimes simply a bloodbath. (Photo © National Archives and Records Administration)
9. Hemingway aboard Pilar in later life looking suitably dazed and confused. He was never the same after his double aeroplane crash in 1954, and his last trip on Pilar took place in 1960. (Photo © National Archives and Records Administration)
10. Jack London and his wife Charmian in Honolulu. London took up the fledgling sport of surfing during his stay on Hawaii and got so badly sunburnt that he became seriously ill. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
11. Jack London the young writer poses at his desk at his home at Glen Ellen, California, in 1905. It was around this date that the grand plan for a world cruise aboard the Snark was formulated. (Photo © Century Company, New York)
12. The building of the Snark, or ‘London’s Folly’ as she was labelled by the press. Here London is seen inspecting her frames, which were supposed to be of oak but somehow ended up being pine. (Photo © Century Company, New York)
13. The battle of Basque Roads in which young Frederick Marryat played an important role. In this picture, the French fleet lies aground and utterly helpless while Marryat’s ship Imperieuse, with Lord Cochrane in command, waits for reinforcements to come and finish them off. The reinforcements never came. (Painting © Louis Philippe Crepin, courtesy of World Imaging)
14. Determined, self assured and extremely charming, Frederick Marryat as a young man. (Painting © John Simpson, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
15. John Masefield in 1916 aged 38 when he was already a successful author and had long since turned his back on the sea. He always felt something of a fraud when it came to the sea, but his short ocean-going career gave him plenty to work with for the rest of his subsequent literary career. (Photo © Library of Congress)
16. The four-masted barque Gilcruix. It was aboard this big iron ship that Masefield served his apprenticeship and here that he learned to love and hate the sea in equal measure. On Masefield’s voyage, the Gilcruix took a terrible battering and was over a month getting around Cape Horn. Owned by the White Star Line, she was later sold to the Germans and renamed Barmbek. She was broken up in 1923. (Photo © State Library of Victoria)
17. A whaling crew do battle with a sperm whale, demonstrating precisely the kind of risks men such as Melville had to take in order to secure their prize. (Print from the author’s collection)
18. Herman Melville in 1860. By this time, his biggest hit Ty-Pee had been in print for well over a decade. Melville cut a disillusioned figure, frustrated at the lukewarm reception of his later works, among them Moby Dick. When the latter was published in 1851, he was convinced it would be a huge success and was left bitterly disappointed. It was only after his death that the book received the acclaim it deserved. (Photo © Library of Congress)
19. Arthur Ransome: fisherman, sailor and foreign correspondent. By 1923, when he took to the sea in earnest, Ransome was so fed up with politics that all he really wanted to do was escape. (Photo © Arthur Ransome Society)
20. Tobias Smollett: fiery, irritable and generally armed with a pen as sharp as a razor blade. He used this to good effect to pour scorn upon the Royal Navy after serving as surgeon during the catastrophic siege of Carthagena. (Painting © Culture Club/Getty)
21. Robert Louis Stevenson painted in 1892 when he had settled in his final resting place of Samoa. He died there two years later aged 44. Stevenson was dogged by illness throughout his entire life and spent much of his time at death’s door. The artist has conveyed his frailty very successfully. (Painting © Girolamo Nerli, courtesy of ArtMechanic)
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First published 2015
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© Sam Jefferson 2015
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Sea Fever Page 38
