The Last Sailing Ship - The Diary of Josie Choate Spencer

Duncan Spencer, award winning author and blue water sailor, weaves the story of "Viking" and the last remaining commercial sailing ships through the diary of his mother, Josie, who booked passage on the "Viking" in 1933.

[@captcarlos]

A beautiful memorial of a Lady of adventure as well as a bygone era of sailing ships. Superbly edited and spoken. Thank you for presenting this video.

[@monticella]

Yes I also was there. A young mariner attending the merchant marine academy. I trained on wooden sail ships. Graduated to commercial steam ships and finally diesel propulsion carried me to my final memorable sojourns at sea. Blue sea, green sea and the odd black sea of the Alaska Gulf.. Many countries, many a beautiful woman. Tasty cheese from Holland and wonderful sidewalk cafe dinners in the south of Italy. Dolphins that approached the bow at full speed only to turn at the last moment and effortlessly ride disappeared

[@Pillowcase]

This is a spellbinding story that I'm so glad to know. It's hard to imagine a time so romantic and adventurous, and only a generation ago.

[@joanleanos1615]

What an amazing woman. Can you imagine in the early 1900s wearing pants all the time? Josie was true to her own beautiful spirit. I loved loved loved this film.

[@klausdiefenbach8329]

What a beautiful tribute To the age of tall ships and also a beautiful person, Josie Spencer. This story gladdened my heart and quickened my step.

[@goognamgoognw6637]

superb self documenting of photographed diary. This is better than any movie, it's all real. I like how her writting has no romanticism, its simplicity is healthy reading.

[@eugeniemicelotta7037]

Very happy to know more about your Mom. Loved it all Duncan!

[@mactcampbell]

Very well done. I spent a number of years at sea on modern ships under power. Even though I never sailed on ships under sail, I still feel spurts of nostalgia when I hear accounts like this.

[@tedmiles2110]

I have spent my life working and studying these winds ships and barks. I was a curator who cared for the ship Balclutha of 1886 for 30 years. She rounded Cape Horn 17 times. I have visited both the four-mast bark Viking and the four-mast bark Pommern at Mariehamn, Aland Islands. The land museum there is first rate! One nit to pick, the Viking is a four-mast bark, not a barkentine. I agree with Duncan that the sail training ships of today are a pale imitation of the working cargo carriers. But i visit them whenever they are in my city or beyond.

[@T2PTVSailingOnDemand]

You are so right! Thanks for you comment.

[@hurri7720]

Bor du på Åland.

[@FlyNAA]

I'm just learning about all this stuff, and noticed the same nit about barque vs. barquentine! So I guess I'm on the right track. Anyway, my interest came here by way of aviation, which is also rich in old stories of hard dangerous work under trying conditions and limited support infrastructure. You might also find romance in the present day (and recent days) of old classic airplanes still working for a living, be it hauling cargo in Canada and Alaska, or hopping rides, or towing banners, spraying crops, doing fire suppression, or in some cases even doing their original jobs as trainers.

[@graemewhalen40]

Thank you sir for this lovely memoir.

[@raindrop5533]

I'm very happy to learn of such people and hear their stories.

[@sallyb3]

Thxz for sharing. Delightful.

[@drewgibbons4799]

Am a bit lost for words.. So very generous to share. As long as we are remembered, so there we are yet...

[@TheSailingChannel]

A wonderful connection to our sailing past. Very well done.

[@sarahoceanhart8145]

That was quite enjoyable! What a lady! Very adventurous. Thank you for sharing!

[@catholiccrusader5328]

I love this woman! What an adventurer.

[@VinceSail]

very interesting to see the old footage narrated by a contemporaneous journal.

[@johnffmitchell]

Her beautiful writing, with its cadence and wonderful articulation, reminds me of Melville.

[@sollasollew3208]

I only have one word for this video: "Beautiful".

[@steadyasshegoes7795]

The Age of Sail. Enjoyed sharing her journeys and your memories of her.

[@xtransam9970]

Sailing was a way of life full of pride, by those great men with high dicipline and principles....

[@duncanspencer2909]

Josie’s rolliflex camera makes it real

[@christophergeorge8800]

Awesome mother you had. Inspiration. You are blessed.

[@HDXBear]

Excellent material well done .

[@chrisratcliffe6806]

Pure gold!

[@johnwright291]

We have a lot in common. My mother was a remarkable woman with a background in boats who died at 49.

[@hannahnairn581]

Wow whoever did that beautiful handwriting deserves a raise

[@T2PTVSailingOnDemand]

Hahaha

[@mirror1675]

She had no time for teachers or for work. It must’ve been nice to be that wealthy.

[@henrikkliebhan4874]

A warm insight in a "maritime" life!

[@marcelolinhares8233]

Very good! Apreciate a lot!

[@hurri7720]

This ended much too soon, sadly.

[@user-hv5ul4rd5p]

'Viking' and other 4-masted barques and clippers were in operation on the annual trade voyage to Australia until 1939. On the return leg in 1940 some of the Scandiavian vessels ran into German minefields off Denmark. So ended an entire sailing epoch and the last vestige of unmechanised transport. It's all in "The Last Grain Race", by Eric Newby, a brilliant writer and adventurer, who signed on as a deckhand on the "Moshulu" sailing out of Belfast for what turned out to be the last time.

[@mikekennedy5470]

Fabulous..

[@jeffsmith2022]

Sorry you lost your Mother at such a young age sir...

[@randykelly5692]

Life of the previlaged.

[@LilA-zl6tf]

She had a magnificient life.

[@markbailey6051]

Now that's living the life!

[@Jakob_Nybo]

Great documentary what I recommend. Kr. Jakob Nybo

[@harmenvc5866]

💓👌 love from Nederland 🥰

[@Pasovineyard]

We still have the Picton Castle. But for how much longer?

[@jeannem6723]

The Argentine training ship "Gloria" looks a lot like the Viking.

[@saltydog-mv4ij]

SHE BE As lovely as QUISSETT HARBOR Mcdougald's is still there

[@o.wildfarmer8023]

Whoaar!

[@Johnreed28]

Brilliant footage of the time but from a very privileged prospective. It was nothing like as described for the “working” crew.

[@T2PTVSailingOnDemand]

Absolutely

[@jonathansimmonds5784]

In addition to Ted Miles comment, I have spent my life actually sailing and rigging ships like these. Five Atlantic crossings, most of the Med, the Baltic, the English Channel and have over the years become somewhat of a pedant when it comes to nautical terminology for fear it gets lost or bastardised with the passage of time in the hands of landlubbers. Not only is Viking a barque (note spelling) but she is also not 'full' rigged, the word full (never fully) means square sails on ALL masts. As for training ships of today being 'pale imitations', I should like to know in what way. Perhaps you might change your mind if you spent time sailing on one, experience weighing anchor by hand capstan on the Norwegian full rigger Sorlandet in the deep waters off Madeira, or having to go aloft in a force 12 off the Azores to secure a main royal that had blown it's gaskets whilst lying a-hull (rolling both rails under), or simply the long climb to get aloft on the 4 mast barque 'Sea Cloud' then having to get all that sail area stowed with only 8 men per mast, or cold wet and tired at 3am on a Winter Nth Atlantic crossing doing your trick at the wheel longing for your hammock or bunk, let's not forget the constant maintenance these ships require, the often back breaking or mind numbingly tedious work that must be done. Perhaps there are better living conditions onboard today's ships, certainly better food on most as I've never found a weevil so far and I suspect there is a lot less bullying going on today too although I have sailed with two martinet skippers who seemed to be reliving their idea of Capt. Bligh... John Masefield I believe captured the true romance of ships of that period when he wrote Sea Fever, or was he lucky not to have signed on under a bully mate, the alternative romantic image most landlubbers have of ships and the sea.

[@martyspargur5281]

When she refers to the "Doctor", does she mean the Cook, the Captain, or an actual Doctor?

[@petem.3719]

@@martyspargur5281 The ship's physician.

[@martyspargur5281]

@@petem.3719 Thank You because I have heard of cooks being referred to as the "Doctor" as well as the captain being the one who would repair battle damaged sailors.

[@petem.3719]

Today's materials, technical clothing, superior charts, communications, radar, auxiliary power, satellites, weather instruments, GPS, safety and medical equipment, generators, fresh food, etc. All of that combines to make a long passage on any sailing vessel today a pale imitation of what it was, regardless of outward appearances. I would guess that if you clothed and equipped a tall ship and its crew today with what was available to a typical ship in 1899, they'd have a pretty rough go of it. Which brings us to the issue of tyrannical captains and mates. Don't get me wrong. There are certainly situations where I have nothing at all against a pale imitation. If a genuine experience requires months of physical abuse, spoiled food, gratuitous danger, general misery and scurvy, I'll take the pale imitation any day. Someone once said that shipboard life was like prison with the chance of drowning. I can certainly see how that could be the case back then.

[@richardtorr4553]

These ships would be ideal today as we travel towards zero carbon. Imagine 8,000 tons of grain moved halfway around the world without fossil fuels.

[@bustersmith5569]

The cats eye ? It was sore ?? Cats eye 🤔 what !!!!

[@captcarlos]

It was common to have a ships cat or cats to control rats.

[@Pillowcase]

I was wondering about that line, myself.

[@petem.3719]

It saddens me greatly to think how, after centuries of perfecting such a glorious and beautiful thing as a tall sailing ship, along with it's accompanying traditions and skills, we eagerly tossed it all out like last week's garbage for little more than the pursuit of the almighty dollar. If there's any truth to the saying that money is the root of all evil, there is no better example of it than our deliberate removal of the tall ship from civilization. Had all the world's cathedrals been torn down and replaced with shopping malls, it would have amounted to a far lesser crime for us to have perpetrated against ourselves. But karmic justice is prevailing as the same coal and diesel and gasoline that destroyed these magnificent ships destroys the planet and ourselves with it. It's really no less than what we deserve.

[@mirror1675]

Clearly you have never had to work on a square rigged tall ship

[@petem.3719]

@@mirror1675 No, I haven't. So what? There are worse jobs out there, some of which are aboard modern vessels and some of which I've done... There's no real reason that the brutal treatment and poor living conditions experienced by 19th Century sailors would have had to continue unchanged just because the same type of ships are being sailed. That was largely a function of motley crews, greedy owners, no regulations and a lack of basic technology. There are still a few tall ships out there even now and AFAIK they manage to keep crewed without Shanghai-ing people or signing up the dodgy characters that made a captain wield an iron fist. And I don't remember a recent mutiny, flogging or case of scurvy onboard any of them. I worked occassionally on commercial shrimpers and bandit boats as a youngster in the 70's. Had tall ships been active then, I'd have signed aboard one. It couldn't be much worse than some of them. Given the unions the maritime laws and the legal protections afforded modern seamen, with any luck, it could be considerably better.

[@bodilsoderblom8720]

The Viking was NOT a "fullrigged barquentine"! Such ships don't exist - they are either fullriggers or barquentines. Viking happens to be a 4-masted barque.

[@andrewmiller6663]

Never worked a day in her life because she didn't have time for it. Ok

[@viviannedonnelly233]

A tale of a "privileged" person. No need to worry about working, caring for family, putting food on the table.

[@obxarms7685]

Wow imagine that..."STANDING ON MERIT" . I wonder if this guy is a Democrat?