Black Harris

WHEN steamships were perfected, they inevitably put an end to the long era of sail as a means of trading commodities across the globe. But sailing ships lingered for decades, and circumstances made Newcastle, NSW, one of the last of the great sailing ship ports. In the early years of the 20th century, the city often hosted as many as 80 sailing ships at once, almost all of them taking Australian coal to the west coast ports of the Americas. Prevailing winds across the Pacific Ocean meant the sailing ships could catch the trades to Australia…