Around the Cape

If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to sail around Cape Horn in a clipper ship, this video is probably the closest you’re going to get. It was filmed in 1929 by Captain Irving Johnson, then a young man, aboard the Peking, one of the great sailing ships of the time. It is an extraordinary record of a bygone era. Johnson’s narration is informative if, at times, annoying. Around twelve minutes from the end, the Peking is beset by storms at the Cape, as ships have been for centuries. It’s a good example of how relatively recently it was still possible to get a glimpse into what seems like the distant past:

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