The book tells the true story of how Eric Newby signed on to the four masted barque the Moshulu on the traditional trading route from Belfast in Northern Ireland to Port Victoria in Australia. Here they load with grain and join a small but select fleet of tall ships racing back to Britain.
It was to be the last ever such race, for they arrived back in June 1939 just weeks before war started, and the world was never the same. Never again did these great ships sail the trade winds across the wild seas of the southern ocean.
One thing was certain: it was a very hard life, and very badly paid. If (say) a bucket was dropped overboard it would come out of the sailors wage, which were pretty meagre. An apprentice like Newby was on just 10 shillings a month, and out of that he had to pay for a lost hammer and cigarettes bought on-board.
The food sounded awful, the bed bugs huge and hungry, the company rough to the point of aggressive, the watches relentless, the rigging dangerously high, the work backbreaking, and the boats riding potentially lethal storms without any insurance.
But it was a moment in history, the last in the line of oceanic voyages by sail that goes back through the history of Dampier and Hawkins, an era that has come and gone.
Ironically I read recently that in order to cut costs and CO2 emissions, shipping lines are reducing their speeds until they are less than the average that Moshulu and her sister's achieved on their last great race.
As to who won that last ever race? Well if you've read the book you'll know and if you haven't I won't spoil it for you. For The Last Grain Race is one of the classics of sailing history.
