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MODERN HARBOURS—By Commander E. C. Shankland, R.N.R. (Chief Harbor Master and River Superintendent of the Port of London). James Brown & Son, Glasgow, 21/-net
Reviewed by Rear Admiral A. P. Niblack. U. S. Navy, (Retired)
Modern Harbours fills a real gap in technical seafaring literature and is of interest to naval officers as giving many important notes on pilotage, salvage, handling of large vessels in tide ways and canals, turning circles, anchorages, moorings and many other questions of practical seamanship. From the moment a ship gets into touch with a radio station, until she enters a harbor and is again outward bound, coastal and harbor pilotage and the operation of port facilities are therein thoroughly described.
Navigation on the high seas, dealing as it does with so many variables, is a science of approximations, but, when a ship gets into pilotage waters, this book enumerates the accurate aids which she has at her command. While it is a compendium of up-to-date information on coast pilotage, harbor engineering, hydrography, hydrology, seamanship, coastal and port signalling, salvage, insurance, harbor regulations, port facilities, safety precautions, meteorology, docking and berthing, and the general question of harbor conservancy, it contains much more than the average sea captain is apt to know, but which the selected captains of the largest ships of the merchant marine all do know. This is not implying that going to sea is a rule of thumb business, or a trade, for it is actually an art requiring, and responding to, keen intelligence and brains. The risks and hazards of the seafaring life give the sea captain a sense of humor, for he knows that in fog, rain, mist, falling snow or rough weather, those who administer the ports and operate the facilities are usually on a snug eight hour-a-day basis, or working on a daily routine, while he is living on the bridge and grateful for a helping hand. We are made aware by the author of the recent development in radio in direction finding; fixes by radio compass; broadcasted notices to mariners; storm warnings; radio telephony from light-ships, lighthouses and shore stations; sound-ranging for preventing collisions at sea, radio beam transmission; echo soundings; echo detection; submarine signalling; time signals, and leader cables. As the author says:
The functions of a ship may be said to consist of (i) overseas navigation, (2) coastal and inland navigation, (3) harbourage, (4) docking, (5) to lie afloat for discharge and or (6) loading of cargo, and (7) dry-docking for overhaul and or repairs to hull. Of these seven functions five are within the jurisdiction of a port, its Board, Commission, or Authority.
At the present moment, the great increase in displacement, draught and speed call for a revision of the hydrographic safeguards to navigation and improvements in port facilities, and we may confidently look forward to several international conferences to bring about these results, especially in the matter of greater uniformity.
The author says “Modern harbours of the British Empire and of other countries do not differ in detail to any great extent; they are, on the contrary, similar to a marked degree.” The reviewer cannot agree with this statement as he has carefully perused most of the sailing directions of the world, and is, at present, engaged in tabulating all the data therein relating to buoyage and buoy lighting, storm warning, and coastal and port signals for use in international conferences, as showing the appalling lack of uniformity in aids to navigation. As an illustration, the buoyage of the British Isles is under three different services, viz., Trinity House Corporation, the Northern Lighthouse Board, and the Commissions of Irish Lights. Under the Trinity House jurisdiction alone there are three hundred local lighthouse authorities in England and Wales regulating upwards of a thousand buoys and beacons. These local authorities may change at will the color of the channel buoys, as the rules governing the British buoyage system prescribe only that the starboard hand buoys, on entering, shall be conical, and port hand buoys flat top or can shaped. Nearly every port in the British Isles has a different system of port signals, traffic signals, docking and berthing signals, tidal signals, and nearly every lighthouse and light-ship has a different system of danger, warning, and lifesaving signals.
The ports of the world are “similar to a marked degree” only in that they have an entrance channel, anchorage ground, berthing and docking facilities, a signal station, a pilot boat, a quarantine station, a custom house, and a harbor master’s office, but in other respects they are comparable to the Tower of Babel. There is so much that is beyond criticism in this book that one may take slight exception to some of the conclusions without diminishing its value. For instance, just as the gyro compass has not really done away with the magnetic compass, which is still required as a check, so are visual signals still a necessary check on radio and other new aids to navigation. The author’s enumeration of the advantages of employing pilots gives as one argument “changes in lighting and buoyage are frequent in some harbors, but he leaves out the most important one which is, that the insurance companies require that a pilot be taken. The exemption of ships, in Great Britain, from taking a pilot, under the Pilotage Act of 1913, includes men-of-war, pleasure yachts, fishing vessels, certain types of ships of under 3,500 tons, etc., but it is just these classes of ships that need the visual marks, which are different in nearly every port of the world.
The author, naturally, has the harbour master’s view, which is that any facilities provided by the port authorities should be satisfactory even if the seafaring people for whom they exist are not consulted. There is also a tendency on the part of the pilotage organizations to favor diversities, as it encourages their employment. When these “trade union” pilot organizations have their meetings the proceedings are generally secret, which makes it appear that the shipowner’s view is not necessarily considered. In the particular case of the Port of London, a ship leaving Tilbury Docks is required to take a pilot out into the Thames River; then another pilot for ten minutes down to Gravesend, and a third pilot to take the ship to sea from Gravesend. All this is under the superintendency of the author.
Any attempt on the part of international uplifters to bring about uniformity in all aids to navigation will receive the hearty support of shipowners and insurance companies, but will not find a friendly reception with those who are responsible for the present diversity which requires the average mariner to either take a pilot or carry a large library around with him to acquaint himself with the vagaries of every port in the world.
The reviewer can cheerfully recommend Modern Harbours as the most welcome and valuable contribution that he has yet encountered on the subject of not so much “going to sea” as of coming in from sea.
VIGNETTES OF THE SEA. By Felix Riesenberg. Harcourt, Brace & Company, New York. $3.00.
The author of Vignettes is an officer of long and varied experiences at sea and is therefore entitled to speak with authority of things pertaining to blue water. He is a graduate of the Schoolship St. Mary’s, and a product of that nautical educational system, which was founded by Admiral Luce in the seventies. Captain Riesenberg has served in the Revenue Marine, Merchant Service, and Coast Survey. He was with Wellman in the Arctic in 1907, and navigated the first dirigible to attempt to reach the Pole. Besides being a seaman, he is a qualified writer on nautical subjects.
It is not surprising then to find the tang of salt in his stories, which he has collected in the volume under consideration and appropriately terms Vignettes of the Sea. The book will find favor with all those who are fond of ships and sailors. There are more than three score sketches mainly of personal experiences in wind jammers, when sails survived steam in a few water bruisers, and only served to remind deep water sailors of the glory and glamour which ever belonged to tall ships.
There are also latter day stories of the liners, and the new ways of those who go to sea now-a-days and find new poetry and romance in the engine room, like McAndrew. There are a few yarns which he has had from old shell-backs, the Revolving Parrott for instance, and a description of Sands Street that is the best thing in the book. It is not to be expected that the same level is maintained in all the stories; some are much better than others, and one cannot help suggesting the pruning knife might have been used to the advantage of the collection.
The author has a clever knack of disguising his stories by unusual titles. Who would guess what follows under “Bibles in Hell Gate,” “The Chain Letter,” “A Railroad Sea Story,” “The Revolving Parrott,” etc.? He gives a personal touch to the book by mentioning names of those with whom he has served and who have shared his life at sea. In this respect the volume is in a manner a graceful tribute to shipmates, a sort of Hail and Farewell, as it were.
It is one thing to be able to tell a story, and quite another to write it. According to Mr. Christopher Morley, who contributed an enthusiastic preface, Captain Riesenberg is a splendid raconteur; and Vignettes proves that he can write as well as talk, but even he cannot convey by signs and symbols the picturesque abjuratory powers of the average sailorman. Who could ever write the yarn of the Mozambique, and do justice to the early English profanity of the first mate, Mr. Simmons, by asterisks and dashes?
In the last chapter Captain Riesenberg mentions a number of sea books which have entertained him. As far as it goes, the list is very good, although some of the titles are not familiar. On the other hand, he might have included John M. Spears Port of Missing Ships, Pierre Loti’s Iceland Fisherman, and From Lands of Exile; and for those who prefer reading French, Combats et Batailles Sur Mer, by Farrere and Chack. Poetry, however, lends itself better than prose to the lure of the sea, and I would add to Captain Riesenberg’s list, Alfred Noyes’, Drake, Poems Old and New, and Admirals All, by Sir Henry Newbolt; and last, but not least, John Masefields' Sea Poems, especially “Sea Fever.”
G.