Welsh Journals

NEWS AND NOTES. THE PASSING OF A FLEET. IN the never-ending changes that we see in our surroundings, perhaps the saddest sight during the last fifty years has been the passing out of the fleet of coasting vessels that plied their trade around this coast for many centuries. These were of two types, one, the Packets,' built on finer lines than their cargo- carrying sisters the latter were used in taking cargoes of manufactured goods from Bristol to the various ports along the coast and were sailed to a time-schedule as near as the weather would permit. Some of the posters announcing their sailings can be seen in the National Library of Wales. Many of these were built at Cardigan when it was one of the leading ports of Wales as well as a shipbuilding centre. These little cargo coasters were not built for speed or beauty in fact, looking at their blunt bows one was given the impression that given a fair wind they would be able to push a section of the bay in front of them rather than go over or through it. On the other hand they were built for strength and ability to withstand the pounding that they were subjected to on the various beaches where they were taken to dis- charge their cargoes of coal, culm, and lime direct into horse-drawn vehicles for delivery to the various villages and farms that bordered the coast. The advent of the steamer a little over a century ago did away with the packets in due time this was followed by the vast network of the railroads. Now the petrol-driven lorry has finally and completely eliminated them all. The chief trade route of these little craft was from the Bristol Channel up to Liverpool with an occasional trip to Ireland and sometimes down the coast of Devon and Cornwall. The prevailing wind around this part is south-west and in case of a falling bar- ometer there is always that nightmare danger to sailors-a lee shore. It is true that there were two harbours, Milford and Fishguard, for shelter but these were not always within reach then the sturdy crews that manned them were called upon to use their knowledge and experience of seamanship to ward off disaster to themselves and the vessel in their charge. With very few exceptions the vast majority were named after some female in the owner's family such as Eliza Ann,' Charming Nancy,' Elizabeth Davies,' Ann and Betsy,' etc. One of the exceptions to the above was the Lion owned and sailed by Capt. Stephen James. The following incident in connection with this veteran of the coast and his little craft shews that among his many other characteristics Stephen Jones was an opp- ortunist as the following will shew. During the latter part of the last century, two of the chief colliery groups in Glamorgan got entangled in a legal struggle that had to be finally decided in Parliam- ent. This created an unusual amount of public interest. It is not the object of this script to deal with the merits or demerits of this struggle except that the outcome of it was the building of Barry Dock and the ceremonial opening of the dock-gate when the Lion' and its opportunist skipper played an important part. Vast preparations were made for the official opening. The newly-built harbour was fairly full of shipping of all rigs and sizes.