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Learning the Ropes: Around the World in the Four-masted " Moshulu "
Learning the An Apprentice in the Last of the Windjammers
- GenresTravelNonfiction
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
About the author
Eric Newby
42 books179 followersGeorge Eric Newby CBE MC (December 6, 1919 – October 20, 2006) was an English author of travel literature.
Newby was born and grew up near Hammersmith Bridge, London, and was educated at St Paul's School. His father was a partner in a firm of wholesale dressmakers but he also harboured dreams of escape, running away to sea as a child before being captured at Millwall. Owing to his father's frequent financial crises and his own failure to pass algebra, Newby was taken away from school at sixteen and put to work as an office boy in the Dorland advertising agency on Regent Street, where he spent most of his time cycling around the office admiring the typists' legs. Fortunately, the agency lost the Kellogg's account and he apprenticed aboard the Finnish windjammer Moshulu in 1938, sailing in what Newby entitled The Last Grain Race (1956) from Europe to Australia and back by way of Cape Horn (his journey was also pictorially documented in Learning the Ropes). In fact, two more grain races followed the 1939 race in which Newby participated, with the last race being held in 1949.
Newby was born and grew up near Hammersmith Bridge, London, and was educated at St Paul's School. His father was a partner in a firm of wholesale dressmakers but he also harboured dreams of escape, running away to sea as a child before being captured at Millwall. Owing to his father's frequent financial crises and his own failure to pass algebra, Newby was taken away from school at sixteen and put to work as an office boy in the Dorland advertising agency on Regent Street, where he spent most of his time cycling around the office admiring the typists' legs. Fortunately, the agency lost the Kellogg's account and he apprenticed aboard the Finnish windjammer Moshulu in 1938, sailing in what Newby entitled The Last Grain Race (1956) from Europe to Australia and back by way of Cape Horn (his journey was also pictorially documented in Learning the Ropes). In fact, two more grain races followed the 1939 race in which Newby participated, with the last race being held in 1949.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 1, 2025
I had just read ‘The Last Grain Race’ so initially I was worried that the opening text was launching into a whole new account of the voyage, but thankfully it did not, and it was interesting to get a little of Newby’s perspective on the whole thing many years on. It is amazing that he managed to take (and bring back) all these photos, especially now that we know just how historic that year’s voyage was.
August 9, 2020
A must read for any budding sailor. What a story!
October 22, 2021
title says it all
April 23, 2022
Superb photos, and a unique account of a trip aboard Gustaf Ericson's "Moshulu" (now a floating restaurant in Philadelphia)
October 18, 2022
An incredible picture record to sit alongside The Last Grain Race. Absolutely incredible.
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February 1, 2026
I'm biased because I adore tall ships and I've been on Moshulu (in restaurant form), but this was truly the perfect afternoon book.
June 29, 2012
Brilliant historical photographic record of 4 masted windjammers in 1939
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews