Windsor Park Windjammer

“Windsor Park Windjammer” black and white scrimshaw on ancient walrus tusk ivory by Jim Pauls. Known for his incredible straight line work, Pauls is considered one of the very best scrimshanders working today. He has worked with Scrimshaw Gallery and Scrimshaw Collector for over four decades.

Her first passage was quite good, 90 days to Saugar Light with a cargo of steel rails for the railroads in India. She spent ten years in the Calcutta and Australian trades and was then sold to Geo. Gorden & Co., of Glasgow, with Captain G. Lambie taking over command from Captain Bentley. One of the best passages on record was a cross-Pacific one of 37 days between Newcastle, N.S.W., and Valparaiso, where she arrived on August 9th, 1897. Unfortunately, the Windsor Park was known more for her long passages in crossing the Pacific than her short ones.

The ship had some unusually long passages homeward bound. In 1901 she took 172 days to go from San Francisco to the Lizard. In 1902 she took 173 days to reach Queenstown, and in 1905 she took 173 days again to go from San Francisco to the Mersey.

She had a narrow escape from ending her days on December 29th, 1906. She was grounded at Cape Racife while sailing between Wallaroo and Port Elizabeth, but assistance quickly came to her aid, and she was refloated.

The Windsor Park was one of those hard working windjammers whose main claim to fame was that she trained thousands of superb seamen in a way which cannot be done by a steamship. She may have been slow, but she kept the seas with few mishaps and made a steady living for thirty-nine years.