The situation is treacherous: Four sailors cling to the rigging of the three-masted steel barque Garthsnaid, securing a section of the foresail that came free from the gaskets in the heavy seas as the ship made passage from Iquique, Chile, to Delagoa (now Maputo) Bay, Mozambique. As the storm raged, the daring second mate, Alexander Harper Turner, then 19 years old, climbed onto the jibboom to capture this photograph with a camera he’d purchased in Iquique.
The Age of Sail had long passed when this photo was taken between April 24 and July 26, 1920, but sailing ships were still used to transport bulk cargo like grain, lumber and metal ores across oceans. The Garthsnaid, which was built in 1892 by
Archibald McMillan & Son under the original name Iversnaid, was used to haul nitrate.
Nitrate was an essential component in fertilizer and in the manufacture of explosives. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was mined in huge quantities along the west coast of South America. By 1912, Chile was exporting more than 2 million tons of nitrate per year, drawing hundreds of cargo vessels to Iquique Bay.
The nitrate trade was one of the last in which sailing ships could compete with steamers, mainly because they did not rely on coal and water, which were often limited or completely unavailable in remote South American ports. The mining process was also slow, and ships often waited at anchor for months as small loads of cargo were ferried out to them, boat by boat. This made it more economical to use sailing ships than the faster steamers.
Demand for Chilean nitrate deposits waned in the 1930s with the rise of synthetic nitrates, but sailing ships were still used commercially until the 1950s in the transport of other low-value bulk cargoes. During these twilight years of shipping cargo under sail, an interesting phenomenon occurred: Victorian-era sailing technology met 20th century photography equipment, allowing brave sailors like Turner to capture photos of these dated ships during storms, something that would have been impossible with the bulky Victorian cameras of a prior generation.
Garthsnaid continued to transport nitrate until April 1923, when she was damaged in a severe three-day storm off eastern Australia. During the storm, the ship lost her main topmast, mizzen topmast, main lower mast and fore topgallant mast, causing her to roll and pitch helplessly in the heavy seas. She only narrowly avoided wreckage and was towed into Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay by the White Star steamer Zealandic. The damage was so extensive that Garthsnaid would never be seaworthy again. She was converted into a coal hulk and was eventually scrapped in 1938.
As for the second mate who dared to climb onto the jibboom for this shot, he went on to establish a career in business ashore before returning to the sea during World War II as an officer in the Royal Navy Reserve.
April 2025
