The Cape Horn Breed

Biography & Memoir History Travel & Exploration

The Cape Horn Breed by Captain William H.S. Jones revives the vanished world of steel-hulled, wind-driven freighters. In this 1999 illustrated hardcover the veteran mariner recounts his teenage apprenticeship in the four-masted barque Caithness-Shire and later command under the British India Steam Navigation Company, giving armchair sailors an authentic glimpse of life before steam took over.

Readers follow Jones from the roaring forties round Cape Horn to colonial Australia, where he served as marine surveyor and Royal Navy Reserve officer. His clear, salt-stung prose captures gales, calms, brass-hatted owners and the camaraderie of a floating world that no longer exists, making the memoir a vivid addition to Australian maritime history and true sea stories.

The 328-page volume arrives clean and unmarked, protected by its original dust jacket and free of smoke or must. Light thumbing on the closed edge is the only sign it has ever left the shelf, while period photographs and line drawings peppered through the text add extra atmosphere for young adults and adults alike.

Collectors of nautical autobiographies, Cape Horn lore, or British merchant-service ephemera will welcome this vintage edition into any maritime library.