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Golden Era

The sailing ships began to lose ground during 1870-1890 to steam ships that were by far faster and could keep to timetables better. Steam ships took over routes that primarily demanded speed. Windjammers concentrated on routes, on which the primary interest lay in the amount of cargo without strict schedules.

The last sailing ships were steel barques. Some of them sailed under the Finnish flag until the 1930's. The era of windjammers came to an end, when Passat and Pamir, the four-mast-barques of the ship-owner Gustav Erikson had sailed round Cape Horn in 1949 returning from Australia to Europe with a cargo of wheat.

The era of windjammers lasted for thousands of years but the radical social and economical changes following the World Wars caused the gallant giants of the world's oceans became obsolete in the brave new world.

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