I joined the William Ashburner for the first time in Youghal between 1942 and 1943, when we went from Youghal to Cardiff and back. Capt. Pat Conway of Wicklow was in her then, but I left her, and when I returned to her at the end of 1943 she had been bought by Capt. Sinnott of Limerick. He had been an extra-master in one of the Cunard boats, and when he had left them at the end of his career he came home and bought the William Ashburner. She was still registered in England and by that time was the only Irish-owned vessel still to carry the Red Ensign. I joined her in Cork, together with Billy Wolohan, who was the sail-master. Our first run with Capt. Sinnott was from Cork to Workington with burnt ore, and we were on this same run all the time we were in her. We loaded the ore in Cork city itself, just at the bridge before you go up to Patrick's Bridge, where there's a little bit of a tongue. The run to Workington would take about fifty six hours with constant going, if you got a good sail of wind and everything going well. Sometimes we'd have to lay up at Waterford, windbound. At Workington the cargo was discharged and then we'd load coal to take back to Cork. Later Capt. Jack Byrne was in her and we ran turf from the Shannon to Dublin and Cork.
There were five crew on the William Ashburner. Capt. Sinnott's brother-in-law was the cook, and there was the engineer and myself. After the skipper there was Bill Wolohan, the sail-master. Billy was sail-master because Capt. Sinnott knew nothing about schooners. He was really a deep-water captain, and had only ever passed by schooners and was hopeless with them. He'd always be there, but Billy Wolohan would take over at sea. If there was a difference of opinion between him and the captain it was the sail-master who had the last say, because he was the man with the education of the sails. If you gybed an oul' schooner, then you were likely to take all the masts out. I'll never forget one day when we were coming down off the Coningbeg and running into the Barrells buoy. The oul' fellow, Capt. Sinnott himself, was on the wheel. She gave a gybe and away goes the mainmast and all, over the side. We were quick to take up the slack rigging, getting it around the belaying pins, but we had to put into Rosslare to get a new mast.
The William Ashburner was a fine, big, laboursome oul' vessel, heavy in the water but a good sea vessel all the same. Although she was in her seventies then, that wasn't anything to do with her age. It was the way she was built - a big, heavy vessel, and laboursome under sail. She needed half a gale of wind on her masts before she got any way on her at all. She still carried a good bit of sail then. She had a boom jib, a standing jib and a stay-foresail, and three fore-and-afters, and a big squaresail on her foremast. At that time they used to say that the squaresail was the money maker. You'd get the squaresail on her and away she went. She had only a 100 h.p. engine, but it was used all the time, unless you got too much wind, and then the engine was no good to her. Going with the engine, and with her fore-and-afters on her, she could manage about six or seven knots. The big squaresail was on her all the time whenever the wind was after her. We could trim the square sail, as long as there was a point abaft the beam, but we could get more trim on the foresail. With a good gale of wind we could sail her goose-necked as well - that's when the foresail is out on the starboard side and the mainsail is out on the portside.
The routine in port was that we stood-by while she was loading, and then we'd square her up and get her ready for sea. When we were at sea, we would just turn in for an hour or two for wind changes. We had to haul in or reef the sails, or something like that. If we were discharging, breakfast would be at half-seven, ready for an eight o'clock start, if we were going to be working the oul' dolly winch. This was a motor winch that was used for heaving out the cargo, and also for raising the sails. We were lucky because we didn't have any heaving at all to do. After finishing with a cargo of coal we had to bathe ourselves from two big buckets. There weren't any bathrooms in the schooners in those days, so we would set ourselves up in the sail locker, or in the galley if there was no one in there. We had to heat the water in a kettle, and then wash our hair first, then bathe and finally someone would throw the water down our backs.
The food wasn't up to the mark. For breakfast there might have been a little bit of a cat's ear of a rasher, with no eggs, but maybe some spuds that had been boiled the day before and then sliced and put in the frying pan. Sometimes we got a bowl of porridge. That would do you to twelve o'clock, half twelve or whatever time we could, and then there would be a bit of corned beef and cabbage. All we got at tea-time was bread-and-jam, and maybe an odd time we would get a bit of cheese. When the ship was in port we could go off and get a cup of tea at night time. That would be the end then, until breakfast time the next day.
There was a good oul' crowd on the William Ashburner. We knocked about together and were as happy as Larry. The skipper's brother-in-law was there, but he was joking and allegating the same as ourselves. Everyone was happy and there were never any arguments. Sometimes, when we were windbound, the fo'c'stle was scrubbed as white as a hound's tooth. All hands would be there, to see who could tell the tallest story. There'd be all kinds of rawmin' and sea shanties and everything, and the crowd would be happy. And we were very comfortable when we were in out of bad weather.
I was in several of the Arklow schooners, including the Cymric, the Mary B. Mitchell and the Venturer. I was in the Sarah Latham, a little vessel of only 180 tons belonging to Connah's Quay. The Useful was owned by Capt. Johnny Wynne, also of Connah's Quay. His son, also called Johnny, used to be in her as well. If the two of them met on the port side they used to box one another, and when one went to the fo'c'stle the other would go aft to the cabin. They wouldn't meet one another on the deck and they were like that ashore as well. A funny thing about the Useful was that she had been registered in Barrow, and written on her stern was "the Useful Barrow". I was always joking Johnny about it, and it used to have him going up the walls. He was a comical oul' fellow, and I liked him because he was always going on about the oul' schooners. In the Useful he was able to sail up to the wind and a point abaft of the beam - he was able to go anywhere in her.
In the oul' schooners we had a kind of pride in ourselves and we would try to keep them as clean as we could. We hadn't much money so an hour here or there didn't make much matter. But the only thing I did hate was scraping down the mast. I remember in the Venturer one time, we were scraping down the mast in March. I had an overcoat on, but it sickened me altogether. But apart from that, you took everything else in your stride.
Acknowledgement : Mr.Brauders was interviewed at his home in Arklow by Jim Rees of the Arklow Maritime Trust, December 1989.