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Yithian

Yithian

Parish Watch
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Ok, a question for any of you nautical types out there. Whilst in Estonia a while back, I visited Tallinn's maritime museum and enjoyed my visit.

One of the tiny exhibits that caught my eye was a yellowing newspaper clipping from The Times in the 1920s or 30s that detailed the adventures of a seaman named Claude Barber who had sailled alone to many weird and wonderful places in what the article considered a tiny vessel. There were pictures of this young chap meeting tribal chiefs and international royalty, and I recall it stating he had sailed certain routes in very fast times.

I know absolutely nothing about sailling but would be interested to hear any information anyone may be able to uncover about him. To be honest, he could be incredibly famous in sailing circles and I probably still would not have heard of him, but, that said, I couldn't turn up anything on the internet.

Sorry if the details are sketchy.
 
Sorry mate, rings no bells with me (or Google!), so he's clearly not in the Joshua Slocum league of fame.
 
not here either.... maybe lots of people do this sort of thing and never get known tho.
 
Would you believe, I've been in that very museum not too long ago, but don't recall the exhibit.
I was in Finland, and took a day trip across to Tallinn, which I thought was fab incidentally. Whole streets of lovely old houses that looked like a film set, except that they were real.
I spent maybe an hour and a half in that museum - it's in a round building isn't it? So each floor you go up is a round room iirc. They've got some very interesting model ships and stuff in there, but I don't remember that one. However, I do have a sailing workmate who I'll ask about this.

Big Bill.
 
Thanks for looking, chaps. It's intrigued me for a while, but I'm still no closer to finding out about this man.

Big Bill Robins said:
Would you believe, I've been in that very museum not too long ago, but don't recall the exhibit.
Click to expand...

When I say 'exhibit', I perhaps give the wrong impression. It was more a little display of articles about Tallinn as a port in the press.

I also thought Tallinn was beautiful, but in a reverse of your trip 'Id been across the Baltic States (the denizens aren't big on the 'Eastern Europe' label) and spent a single day in Helsinki before flying home. I'd love to go back and explore Finland and more of Scandanavia, but the prices there make it a serious venture as opposed to a between-term trip.

I believe the round building that is now home to the maritime museum is called, funnily enough, 'Fat Margaret', and is one of the old cannon towers that used to defend the port.

Incidentally, there is a plaque outside thanking the Royal Navy for their aid against the attacks of Lenninist Russia post-WW1. I personally didn't know anything of our involvement until I saw this!

I doubt it'll help, but there was a big celebration in Tallinn when he arrived apparently.
 
I asked my sailing workmate about a Claude Barber, but he said he'd never heard of him. :sad:

Big Bill Robinson
 
Thinking about our Claude, a lamp dimly lit up in the cobwebbed recesses of my mind - it illuminated a sign: Barber Hauler.

Perhaps Claude designed this? But then I couldn't even remember what a Barber Hauler does, so I had to Google a bit, and found this comment:

"For sailboats having only a single fixed point for the sheet lead block, or where a track is not long enough to fit all the sails, the solution is a Barber hauler (named after its inventor Merrit Barber). This is a short line with a hook or snatch block on one end to deflect the sheet..."

So it wasn't our Claude after all. But perhaps Merrit is family...? :)
 
I wonder...

Captain Horatio Claude Barber (1875 – 1964) was an early British aviation pioneer and First World War flight instructor. In 1911 he flew the world's first cargo flight when he was asked to transport electric light bulbs from Shoreham to Hove. He was also the first person in Great Britain to gain an aeronautical degree.

http://www.earlyaviators.com/ebarber.htm
 
Yithian said:
I wonder...

Captain Horatio Claude Barber (1875 – 1964) was an early British aviation pioneer and First World War flight instructor. In 1911 he flew the world's first cargo flight when he was asked to transport electric light bulbs from Shoreham to Hove.
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You wonder, I boggle!

Shoreham to Hove is about 5 miles (8 km). How many light bulbs, I wonder! :twisted:
 
That does sound like a test flight for the concept of 'cargo flights'. He deliberately picked a cargo that was difficult to transport as a 'proof-of-concept'.
 
I don't think Horatio Claude is the Claude remembered in Estonia.

I've rummaged through multiple biographies of Horatio (including an online version of his book), and there's no mention of his having any sailing experience at all.
 
Yithian said:
Rats!
Click to expand...

Since your original query is 13 years old, and it appears the Maritime Museum in Tallinn has moved at least part of their collections / exhibits into a newer second site, there's a good chance the clippings you saw aren't currently on display.

Have you considered contacting the museum to see if they can provide more information?
 
I didn't know that the museum had moved. I spotted the name of the aviator and this question popped back into my mind.
 
Mythopoeika said:
That does sound like a test flight for the concept of 'cargo flights'. He deliberately picked a cargo that was difficult to transport as a 'proof-of-concept'.
Click to expand...
'Difficult to transport'? It's harder to think of a lighter cargo than light bulbs (no pun intended). A few bags of coal might have been a more impressive!
 
rynner2 said:
'Difficult to transport'? It's harder to think of a lighter cargo than light bulbs (no pun intended). A few bags of coal might have been a more impressive!
Click to expand...

Light bulbs are fragile though. They might not have survived a rough landing.
 
escargot1 said:
Light bulbs are fragile though. They might not have survived a rough landing.
Click to expand...
They're not packed loose in a box though. Probably back then they were already wrapped in corrugated cardboard, because transport by early motor vehicles or horse and cart was probably not a smooth ride! And electric bubs being lightweight means that properly wrapped they'd probably survive a minor prang. (Force applied is proportional to change of momentum - I. Newton)
 
Yithian said:
Ok, a question for any of you nautical types out there. Whilst in Estonia a while back i visited Tallinn's maritime museum and enjoyed my visit. One of the tiny exhibits that caught my eye was a yellowing newspaper clipping from The Times in the 1920s or 30s which detailled the adventures of a solo seaman named Claude Barber who had sailled alone to many weird and wonderful places in what the article considered a tiny vessel. There were pictures of this young chap meeting tribal chiefs and international royalty and i recall it stating he had sailled certain routes in very fast times.

I know absolutely nothing about sailling but would be interested to hear any information anyone may be able to uncover about him. To be honest he could be incredibly famous in sailing circles and i probably still would not have heard of him, but, that said, i couldn't turn up anything on the internet. Sorry if the details are sketchy.
Click to expand...

Was that the British Times?

I searched the British newspapers archive 1900-1945 and had only a few hits for "Claude Barber" none of which mention sailing.

Trying Claude + Barber throws up thousands of matches because a company with a similar name advertised every week for years, but filtering them still didn't throw up anything relevant, it could be in there but I couldn't see it.

Did you take a picture of the exhibit?
 
escargot1 said:
Light bulbs are fragile though. They might not have survived a rough landing.
Click to expand...
That's what I was talking about. Light bulbs then were more fragile than they are now.
 
Semi-related: just before Christmas there was a radio doc about the creator of "Swallows and Amazons" and he had a connection with this part of the world, getting one of the boats which are immortalised in the books from Estonia. Wonder if there's a connection between the two stories?
 
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got it; from wikipedia on Arthur Ransome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ransome

"In October 1919, as Ransome was returning to Moscow on behalf of The Manchester Guardian, the Estonian foreign minister Ants Piip entrusted him to deliver a secret armistice proposal to the Bolsheviks. At that time the Estonians were fighting their War of Independence alongside the White movement of counter-revolutionary forces. After crossing the battle lines on foot, Ransome passed the message, which to preserve secrecy had not been written down and depended for its authority only on the high personal regard in which he was held in both countries, to diplomat Maxim Litvinov in Moscow. To deliver the reply, which accepted Piip's conditions for peace, Ransome had to return by the same risky means, but this time he had Evgenia with him. Estonia withdrew from the conflict and Ransome and Evgenia set up home together in the capital Reval (Tallinn).[16]
"After the Allied intervention Ransome remained in the Baltic states and built a cruising yacht, Racundra. He wrote a successful book about his experiences, Racundra's First Cruise. He joined the staff of The Manchester Guardian when he returned to Russia and the Baltic states. Following his divorce, he married Evgenia and brought her to live in England, where he continued writing for The Guardian, often on foreign affairs, and also writing the "Country Diary" column on fishing. The Racundra was sold to the yachting author Kaines Adlard Coles who cruised it with his wife and wrote a book about that cruise."

the Racundra: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racundra's_First_Cruise
 
=Incidently, there is a plaque outside thanking the Royal Navy for their aid against the attacks of Lenninist Russia post-WW1 I personally didn't know anything of our involvement until i saw this! Btw. I doub it'll help but there was a big celebration in Talinn when he arrived apparently.
Click to expand...

Arthur Ransome's involvement - a Russophile married to a Russian, who settled in Estonia for a while in the early 1920's, he was a three-way go-between for the Russians, the British and the Estonians. Did a bit of sailing here too - "Swallows and Amazons, Comrades". So the thought of a link betwen Ransome and the mysterious Claude Barber is tantalising - it's tempting to wonder if this was an alias Ransome used while on MI5/Foreign Office business in the Baltic... now searching for a book, currently known to me only from a Google search, called the Last Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome, which details this murky stage of his life, in espionage and as an informal diplomat in the Baltic in this time period.
 
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An elephant never forgets...

PETER Barber, but I reckon this is it.

Swiss-cheese memory, but enough consistent facts to convince me.

img.jpeg


Full story and pictures here:
https://www.shippingwondersoftheworld.com/transatlantic.html

wp50808457_05_06.jpg
 
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