Page 32 - Captain William Strike of Porthleven
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October 3, the Falmouth Port Entry log notes an arrival from San Jose, ‘Ready Rhino’
being on passage to Antwerp. The San Jose referred to here is the Uruguayan port on
the Santa Lucia river, which drains into the River Plate. Earlier in the year – in April –
‘Ready Rhino’ had been trading into Montevideo. A very similar pattern occurred in
1880, with the middle part of the year taken up with trading in the Rio Grande. A return
from the southern hemisphere is recorded in Fox’s Register of Arrivals and Sailings, for
Falmouth. On July 30 ‘Ready Rhino’ is recorded as arriving with a cargo of hides, bound
for Hamburg though somewhat confusingly the consignees are stated to be the London
firm of Knowles and Fisher. This must have been one of William Strike’s last voyages on
‘Ready Rhino’ as his son John took command.
Retirement
The year of 1881 was the year that saw William Strike retired from the sea at the age of
67. Once again, ‘Ready Rhino’ spent much of the middle part of that year trading down
to the Rio Grande while the first part of the year, up to the end of April, was spent trading
down to Cadiz and Seville.
The following year – 1882 – records coastwise passages to Hull, Goole and Nantes
again under the command of the Norwegian, Rasmusson. John Strike seems to have
had command for the voyages down to the Rio Grande, which occupied most of the
period from May to October. A considerable number of passages were to Pernambuco,
which may suggest that the Strikes had secured a lucrative part of the sugar export trade
from that port.
In 1883, command is again shared though at least two voyages to the Rio Grande, in
January and February, and again from July through to October, suggest that John Strike
wanted one last bite at the lucrative freights which applied to this part of the world. Late
in 1883 John Strike exercised his power of sale. The power of sale granted was
constrained so that any purchase price should be not less than £500 whether the vessel
was sold in South America or on the Continent of Europe. In the event, John Strike sold
‘Ready Rhino’ to John Stephens of Feock. It appears that William Strike’s son was well
funded for the purchase of the ‘Elizabeth Stevens’ in the following year, 1884, even
though part of the purchase price was funded through mortgage finance. That chapter of
John Strike’s sea-going life was described previously.
The golden age of sail
There is no doubt that the period 1860 to 1890 was something of a golden age for sail in
world trade. In the case of South American trade, smaller vessels like ‘Ready Rhino’
were able to take advantage of good freight rates for a variety of reasons, not least the
fact that docking facilities in the ports of the Rio Grande were slow to develop in order to
accommodate the larger, steam driven vessels.
Nevertheless, increasing competition from steam propulsion probably meant that 1883
was an opportune moment for a sale of ‘Ready Rhino’. The growing efficiency of steam
propulsion meant that sail had a limited life expectancy. Until then steam driven vessels
could only expect to compete effectively with sail if the technology showed significant
improvement, if freight rates and market prices factored in an absorption of higher
transport costs, and if subsidies were deliberately biased towards transportation by
steam driven vessels. Significantly it appears that those steamships were, by 1870, able
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