Around Cape Horn Once More

By Paul W Simpson

The clipper ship Montebello was built in Nantes, France in 1900 and wrecked on Kangaroo Island in 1906...this is her story. Around Cape Horn Once More is the tale of the adventures of the French bounty clipper ship Montebello and the men who sailed her around the globe. It brings to light a period of France’s maritime history that has never been told before in such thrilling and dramatic detail.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365076459

Book preview

Around Cape Horn Once More

Around Cape Horn

Once More

The Story of the French bounty clipper Montebello and her Captains.

1900-1908

Paul. W. Simpson

Copyright.

Clippership Press.

Adelaide, South Australia

[e-mail]

Paul W Simpson 2016

This publication is copyright.

Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the copyright act, no part may be reproduced by any process without the written permission of the publisher.

Commercial Sail’s Last Gasp.

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Cape Horn viewed from the sea, circa 1900.

State Library of Victoria.

In the last decades of the nineteenth century the age of sail was on the wane, the Suez Canal had opened in 1864 and steamship technology was improving year by year. British shipping dominated global trade but they were not the only European power with a proud tradition in sail.  One of these was France, which with the rise of the Fifth Republic in 1871 was pushing forwards with a modernisation program to rival Britain and Germany. With the expansion of her overseas territories into Indochina and growing exploitation of high grade nickel ore in New Caledonia there was a general call for an increased tonnage to bring products from France’s growing and far-flung empire back to Europe to help fuel the continent’s insatiable thirst for raw materials.  In 1881 the government under President François Paul Jules Grévy passed the first Bounty Bill which offered payments to support the growth of French ship owners to expand their fleets. 

With the growing commercial exploitation of her expanding territorial gains France needed a navy to police and protect her global interests. In a throwback to a bygone age it was considered by those in power that sailors trained in sailing ships could be drafted into the navy and thus guarantee a ready supply of ready-made mariners for when her commercial concerns were threatened and war was in the offing. The first Bounty laws offered a premium on both the construction and navigation of ships operating under French colours. Foreign built vessels, mostly from Britain attracted a lower subsidy than those built in French shipyards. However despite the best of intentions most French shipping firms simply built more and larger steamers that often employed foreign sailors amongst their crews. The tonnage of steamers increased from 278000 tons in 1881 to 500000 tons in 1890. The end result of the 1881 laws was to drastically inflate the prices of domestically built vessels. The greatest increase in shipping came from the purchase of foreign built steamers which could be produced faster and much more cheaply than those from home-grown slipways. On the average a ship built in Britain cost 300 francs per gross ton, whilst the same vessel cost 420 francs in France. Despite the governments best intentions the decline in the tonnage of French shipping continued through the eighties as did the number of quality sailors available for the French navy. Thus the government of Charles de Freycinet enacted the Navigation Bounty Act of 1893 to promote the production of sailing ships built in France manned exclusively by French sailors.  The laws favoured ship builders over owners and were enacted to stem the loss of sailing vessels.  The bounty started out at one franc, seven centimes per gross ton and increased year by year for the first ten years of a new ship’ commercial life.  The bounty was paid to ship owners for each 1000 miles traversed, per gross ton.  The rules for the bounty were rather strict but were filled with enough loopholes that sailing ship builders and owners found ways to exploit the bounty to their benefit, many growing seriously wealthy as a consequence.  The result of the 1893 bounty laws saw an explosion of sailing ship building in yards in many major French coastal yards, chief amongst these was the port city of Nantes on the Loire River. Eventually 212 steel hulled sailing vessels were built, the first launched being the Jules Verne in 1894. In all 142 vessels were eventually registered there.  With rising freight rates from 1897 the tempo of ship building increased dramatically as the yards in the ports of Dunkerque, Havre, and Rouen came onboard.

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Postcard of Saint Nazaire, the seaport of Nantes, Brittany. Circa 1900.

Photographer Unknown. Saint Nazaire Archives.

The Nantes based vessels were mostly barques capable of carrying anywhere from 2600 to 3000 tons of cargo.  Most sailed in ballast from France to ports all across the world with the bounty being paid upon the gross tonnage of the vessels and the distance travelled with the stipulation that the subsidy would only be paid if the vessel carried a cargo for at least three fifths of the voyage. The stipulation of gross tonnage led to most French built vessels having elevated decks which increased crew accommodations to luxurious levels and reduced the space of the well deck significantly in many cases. With their fine lines, large sail plans and distinctive grey colouring many French sailers were easily recognisable in ports all across the globe. The Act of 1893 applied only to sailing vessels over 80 tons. Foreign-built vessels receive no bounty and four per cent, of the navigation bounties paid were to be banked are for the benefit of sick and distressed sailors. The laws also stipulated that the captain, officers, and at least three fourths of the crew had to be French citizens. The navigation bounties only applied to vessels in global foreign trade.  Of the 944,013 tons of shipping owned by France in 1890, 370,000 tons received navigation bounties most of which went to the owners of deep-water sailing vessels. Such was the nature of the bounty that many ship owners refused low paying freights because it was much more profitable to stay at sea and sail to the far side of the world before seeking orders in some out of the way port such as Hobart, Tasmania. A ten month cruise could net an owner more than 75000 francs often more than a third above the cost of the capitalisation of the vessel itself. Whilst the subsidy started out at 1.7 francs per gross ton for each 1000 miles sailed, it decreased by 6 centimes per year for the first decade.

The Bretagne Peninsula, home of the revival of Frances commercial sailing fleet.

METHUEN & CO. LTD, London, circa 1902.

Rise of Nantes Shipping and the Family of Guillon.

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In 1862, Saint-Nazaire, was a simple fishing village and home to Loire pilots who guided vessels up river to the city of Nantes.  However with the increase in shipbuilding and commerce it soon became the chief transatlantic port in Brittany. The city experienced such a boom that from 1860 its population grew from a village of 800 fisher folk to a thriving city of 30 000 by 1900.   The Bounty laws of 1893 brought great prosperity of the city’s ship builders as they sought to cash in on the governments generosity. One family that prospered more than most was that of Leon Jean-Pierre Guillon, marine insurance broker, ship owner and president of the commercial court in Nantes.

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Port of Nantes with shipyards in the background. Circa 1900.

Unknown Photographer. Le Archives de la Vendee.

Leon Guillon belonged to a family who had owned and operated ships out of the Loire for almost two hundred years. His wife was Marie Sophie Verne the sister of the famous French writer Jules Verne. He was the head of the family firm, a marine insurance company, and held an interest in the mercantile shipping company of Guillon and Fleury, where his son and nephews were majority and directors. Speculating on the continued largess of Paris He borrowed heavily (160,000 francs) to build the first bounty ship, the 2100 ton barque Jules Verne, laid down by Dubigeon of Nantes at the cost 400,000 francs.  The vessel was the first of many to be built in Nantes over the next decade as the firm of Guillon and Fleury with the backing of Leon Guillon ordered several three and four masted barques of 2400 tons or more.  Raoul