ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 4, 1996 TAG: 9604040045
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ray L. Garland
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
BEFORE LAST winter is forgotten, let me tell you something wonderfully different we did that a fortunate few may wish to consider doing when next February looms, or is it glooms? That is, plying the blue-green waters of the Caribbean in the modern incarnation of a four-masted clipper ship, slipping into small ports among the Leeward Islands, or perhaps the Grenadines - surely one of the most alluring words in the language.
Our ship was Star Flyer, built in Belgium in 1991, joined by her sister ship Star Clipper a year later. Because the line wanted pictures of the two ships together, we enjoyed the added bonus of standing on the deck of the Flyer while watching an identical twin go through her paces. That, they said, may never be repeated, which recalled a once-in-a-lifetime experience 35 years before when I saw the old Queen Elizabeth and the other great Cunarder, R.M.S. Queen Mary, pass in mid-ocean. Then, you had to be quick about it. With these huge ships closing at more than 50 miles an hour, it wasn't long before the vision passed from sight.
But we had the Clipper with us most of the day, dressed all in white against the deep blue of the sea and the lovely green mountains of Domenica.
It's funny how often prophecy fails. When I saw the Mary from the deck of the Elizabeth in 1962, the five-day crossing of the North Atlantic was being made obsolete by the arrival of jet aircraft. But now there are more passenger ships than ever. The problem is they're hardly ships, more like floating hotels, nightclubs and gambling casinos. Their ports of call are almost incidental. And when they drop anchor, it's to disgorge hundreds of shoppers at stores especially created to process their credit cards. Seeing these crazily dressed, usually fat people descend upon some godforsaken town is one of the scariest sights this spacious world affords.
The clipper-ship experience isn't like that. For one thing, even when full, a clipper carries fewer than 175 passengers, which gives you a shot at some real camaraderie. And with very little in the way of professional entertainment aboard, the passengers must entertain themselves.
In a small universe, we treasure brief encounters. There was the German baron straight out of central casting, traveling alone, who always had his nose in a trashy paperback. But when he took the wheel coming out of Antigua, we find he's a skilled and passionate sailor. A couple from Brazil became our best shipmates. He turned out to be a high-court judge and sometime diplomat given to droll jokes. Sincere invitations to exchange visits were given and may actually be realized. We included a New Yorker who was by himself in a few of our shore forays. He repaid our modest hospitality by organizing a superb lunch when we reached St. Barthelemy, where he demonstrated a mastery of French in settling the menu with the proprietress. Small ships are like that.
But the greatest character was undoubtedly the ship herself. The Flyer is big - more than 3,000 tons and 360 feet from bow sprit to fantail. And tall, very tall. The main mast rises 226 feet. The volume of her 16 sails, jibs and gallants is an astonishing 36,000 square feet, or almost an acre. When the wind is right, they are capable of pushing her through the water at just over 20 miles an hour, though speeds roughly half that are more customary and comfortable.
Those dimensions, while imposing, might be compared to the Queen Mary. She weighed 80,000 tons, stretched more than a thousand feet and carried 3,000 souls. While modern cruise ships are generally smaller, vessels even larger than the Queen Mary are now being built. But they will never compete with the elegance of a svelte clipper under full sail.
Nor will they compete in the excitement of getting under way as orders are barked and ropes pulled to set the sails. Gone are the days, of course, when men went aloft in howling winds to wrestle sodden canvas into place. But the drama of raising the sails has been preserved. Nothing prepares you for the power of even a modest wind as it bites into the sails, straining against the ropes.
What the sea gained in Master Ulrich Pruesse of the Flyer, the stage lost. As a young man, his father had shipped out of Hamburg on the last of the merchant clippers going round Cape Horn to Chile. We saw a "home" movie of a 1928 voyage, including a violent passage through some of the most dangerous waters in the world that cost two men their lives.
It's Capt. Ulie's ambition to take the helm of a modern clipper, built strong enough for the Horn. He believes there are a sufficient number of people willing to pay for the privilege of following in the wake of those great navigators of history like Ferdinand Magellan, Capt. James Cook (who rounded the Cape in a vessel of 462 tons) or Sir Francis Drake, who took 17 days in a horrible storm in 1577 to do it.
With all respect, Capt. Ulie, I don't know how many takers you'll have for such a voyage. But if anybody can do it, you can. His talks to passengers gathered around the wheel when the ship got under way just before sunset were a high point of the cruise.
The Flyer will shortly make an Atlantic crossing to take up service in the Mediterranean. This makes her the first clipper ship in more than a century to offer commercial passenger service across the Atlantic. And, they say, the first to be certified by the Coast Guard to carry passengers in U.S. waters. While the Star Clipper may have unwisely sailed into the hurricane that devastated the Caribbean last year, she survived with relatively small damage.
Then, there's the land, eight islands in one week. These are never more beautiful than when seen from the sea. This was the Empire of Sugar, once as important (and as fought over) as the Empire of Oil today. After decades of peaceful and impoverished slumber, they now awake to the Empire of Tourism. Get some of it while you can see it much as Admiral Nelson did in the days when the cry "the French are on the sea" mustered all hands.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times columnist.
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Star Flyerby CNB