For four years, from 1905 to 1909, William Jones served as a young officer's apprentice in the British Mercantile Marine on the full-rigged three-masted ship, British Isles, on her voyages around Cape Horn, to the West Coasts of the Americas, and across the Pacific Ocean to Australia. This true, vividly told, highly detailed account of his voyages through some of the world's most dangerous waters provides a riveting account of the final days of commercial sail.