Category: Sailing ships

Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 2

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

‘For some minutes Ben and I stared stupidly at the dark triangular dorsal fins of the sharks silently cleaving the unruffled surface of the sea.’

Two more chapters of Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey today: Chapter III Hungry Sharks and Chapter IV The “Old Man” Struggles With Algebra.

shanghaied-26 shanghaied-28 shanghaied-30

shanghaied-32 shanghaied-34 shanghaied-36

shanghaied-38 shanghaied-40 shanghaied-42

Why not print these out so you can read them at your leisure?

For the rest of this series of posts:
Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 1

Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 2

Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 3

Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 4

Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 5

Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 6

Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 7

Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 1

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

shanghaied-a shanghaied-b shanghaied-c

shanghaied-d shanghaied-e shanghaied-f

‘It is to be understood that the author is not a sailor, but merely a civil
engineer Shanghaied as one.’

The winter holiday season shouldn’t be all work, so I’ve decided to put up some cracking reading – the wonderful Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties, by Hiram P Bailey. I trust some of you find time to look at it, but if you don’t these pages will still be just as good in the coming year or any other time.

I don’t know whether the tale told here is exactly true, but it makes a wonderful romp. What’s more, the various scenes including the dead horse ceremony, crossing the equator and the return to San Francisco (including a splendid villainous melodeon player) have a real ring of truth about them – Hiram P had clearly either done a lot of research or had spent time on ship himself.

My particular copy clearly belonged to someone fascinated by sailing ships, as just about every blank page has a cutting from a Cornish newspaper about sailing ships pasted over it.

PS. Some of Mr Bailey’s biographical details can be found here.

shanghaied-14 shanghaied-16 shanghaied-18

shanghaied-20shanghaied-22 shanghaied-24

Why not print these out so you can read them at your leisure?

For the rest of this series of posts:
Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 1

Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 2

Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 3

Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 4

Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 5

Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 6

Shanghaied out of Frisco in the Nineties by Hiram P Bailey – part 7

Cornish monuments, wrecks and disasters, part 1

[ad name=”intheboatshed-post”]

mohegan-window

mohegan-window-2 mohegan-window-3

Windows dedicated to those who lost their lives when the
SS Mohegan sank off the Manacles rocks in 1898

(As usual, click on the images for a larger photograph)

Cornwall’s churchyards bear many moving monuments dedicated to those who have died on board ship, often in wrecks.

The photos above are of the windows at the church in St Keverne dedicated to those who lost their lives in the SS Mohegan, which went down on the Manacles, a legendarily dangerous  group of rocks on the Eastern side of the Lizard Peninsula that seems to have caught many ships just as they were about to reach the safety of the Fal Estuary.

A mass grave was dug for the dead from the SS Moheghan in the churchyard – in the church itself a folder includes a photograph of some of the survivors being rescued from the ship’s rigging.

Another tragedy that is remembered locally is that of the Primrose, which sank with the loss of 126 lives, including many soldiers returning from fighting Napoleon’s army in the Peninsular War.

If you happen to take a holiday in this area as we did in September this year, the churches and their churchyards are certainly worth exploring – I’m quite sure we didn’t find the best of them by far, so I’d love to know what there is to find.

peninsular-war-monument

peninsular-war-monument-2 primrose-monument

Monument to the dead of the wreck of the Primrose

john-monument

john-monument-2 bay-of-panama-monument

John and Bay of Panama memorials

carronade carronade-2

Carronade from HMS Primrose

manacles

The cause of half of the trouble, the Manacles, looking
very small and innocent on a calm summer day

enemies-persecutors-and-slanderers

Here’s one more from St Keverne – and you may find it a little
more uplifting – someone here clearly thought he had rather
too many enemies, persecutors and slanderers!