Today I learned...

The last great commercial sailing (with sails) fleet of the world was run out of Finland, operated by a man named Gustaf Erikson. The ships employed in this fleet were used, at the ends of their lives, to haul the grain harvest from Australia to England in The Grain Races, which were reported in the newspapers and somewhat enthusiastically followed by the public.

This post is not about the great wooden tea clippers like the Thermopylae and the Cutty Sark. The tea clippers stopped doing the tea run in the 1880's. This is not that. This is later than that. This is probably later than you think.

( Read more? You should. You're probably gonna learn some things. I did. )