Where have all the old coaster gone?
November 20th 2006 19:14
An old coaster
I I wonder where all the old cosatal steamers have gone? It doesn't seem like so long ago that you could see them tied up to local wharves or ploughing up and down the coast puffing away as they steamed what seemed to be a regulation distance from the shore. Just half a hull under the horizon. I suppose the skippers had coastal licences and were required to keep within a certain distance.
Often they carried passengers in some oppulence. A rough trip for many but in some ways not as rough as the old roads and trains were still a bit of a bore and everyone knew that travelling faster than a horse could gallop could make one very ill and put them in bad humours.
To me there was a romance in just looking at them. Squat hulls that seem probably quite ugly to many people these days but to me all I could see was exotic far away ports, crew living a Gypsy life on the sea with freedom and a mateship that can only be forged at sea.
I took a few coastal trips myself. The most memorable was on the old "Wahine" which was out of Wellington New Zealand to a port just north of Christchurch on the South Island. It was an overnight trip and I could not afford to travel in style so I was sharing a cabin that was set up with ten bunks. As I was sharing with all Maoris they in turn were sharing their bunks with their Wahines (young women) and each one seemed to want to sing their own song and strum a guitar. It was a horrific rough trip across Cook Straight and they were determined to stay up all night in case the ferry went down. My snoring put paid to that and they all ended up in the passage way.
Another experience of note was from Parnu on the coast of Estonia to and Island called Saarema in the Baltic sea. It was an old coaster that also took cars and it was strengthened against ice. It was early spring and most ice had broken up but the sea was still littered with floes. Not your big growling ice bergs of the high lattitudes but thick sea ice. It was a scary sound at first, hearing the ice scrape along the side of the boat. Right at the waterline as well. If it punctured the hull we were going down in very cold water! The hull was tough but as the Maoris liked to sing and romance to keep up their courage the Estonians on board took to vodka. (I didn't mind sharing in that at all.)
I recently saw an old coaster off Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsunday's and it had been turned into a private yacht. What a magnificent and to me, elegant site. It was flying a Tongan flag I think and the owner had his favourite cars on board that he could haul out and drop straight out on the wharf with the cargo derrick. Ahhh, the romance and adventure that vessel had seen and the romance and adventure still left under her hull.
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