Port Victoria Maritime Museum: Ali explores the Yorke Peninsula region of South Australia
Today, Port Victoria is a sleepy Yorke Peninsula town where much of the action, albeit reasonably sedate, happens on the jetty as tourists and locals try their luck with the rod.
But the sign in the main street harks back to a time when the Port Victoria Jetty was creaking and groaning under the strain of mountains of bagged wheat. The time when farmers got their harvest to the coast to meet up with a flotilla of magnificent sailing craft that came from Marieham in the Orland Islands of Finland.
A DVD on show in the Port Victoria Maritime Museum transports visitors back to the last days of the Cape Horners. And inside the quaint little room are countless reminders of those brave sailors who came half way across the world in their tall ships to pick up our bagged wheat and barley.
Gary Kerr's impressive documentary, The Last Cape Horners, tells the tale of blokes - both Australian and Finnish - who knew the perils of rounding Cape Horn in massive Windjammers. In an age of steam, these magnificent tall ships were dinosaurs but elegant wind-powered dinosaurs nonetheless. And they remained in operation long after their use-by-date thanks to the business acumen of one man.
"A Fin called Gustav Erikson bought up the best of the steel hulled sailing ships," explained local historian, Stan Squires. "A lot of the ships were German and had only been built 20 years because steam ships were taking over in a big way. So he bought them for a song because they were going to be broken up. He ran them on wind - it was free. He was pretty shrewd, he didn't insure his ships at all."
A tough businessman with a love of sail power, Erikson also employed sea cadets, subsidised by the Finish Government at pay rates way above what he was prepared to offer. That meant he could pocket much of the wages bill. But despite all this, Erikson's crews were fiercely loyal and over time were given the chance to visit exotic places like Port Victoria - or Port "Veek" - as they called it.
The museum tells the story of a time when the Port "Veek" farmers and their families would come on board vessels like the Pommern and the Pamir for Saturday night dances. There are stories of young Finnish sailors having one too many at the Port Vic pub and missing the boat back out to their ship. They would have to sleep on the grain stacks.
The next morning they'd be up again loading more grain from farmers up and down the Peninsula. Back in 1934, when there were only 26 tall ships still operating commercially, 17 of them were here at Port Victoria to collect the local harvest. With many seven storeys high when under sail it must have been an awe-inspiring sight.
And though they were later superceded by steam power... when under full sail these grand old ladies of the sea could really move. Known as the Great Grain Races, the Finnish registered vessels would hold an unofficial race back to the major ports of Europe.
"The fastest journey was from Port Vic in 1933 by the Pamir which took eighty three days."
Today the jetty's a much quieter place. But for a sense of what it was like all those years ago perhaps local Allan Villiers should have the final say.
"The freight trains will thunder on, the airplanes will roar but the wind will not sigh again gently in the rigging of an old sailing ship. Beauty will be gone from the ocean and an art form lost to the world."
The story of the last windjammers is told at the Port Victoria Museum. It's open weekends and Public Holidays.
Port Victoria Maritime Museum
Port Victoria Jetty
Yorke Peninsula
Open Weekends & Public Holidays
Oct to Easter Tues & Thurs 2pm to 4pm Or by appointment
8834 2202
DVD "The Last of the Cape Horners" by Gary Kerr on sale at museumPublished Sunday 22nd April 2007
