_Invercargill_, under Captain Bowling, had many excellent passages to her credit. Captain Bowling was a native of Kingstown, in Ireland, and started his sea life in the China trade. He commanded the _Invercargill_ for 13 years, at the end of which time he had been 50 years at sea and 30 years in command of sailing ships. He was one of Shaw, Savill’s most trusted commanders and was noted for the way in which he handled his beautiful ship. Not many years ago a writer to the “Nautical” described one of Captain Bowling’s skilful bits of seamanship. He wrote as follows:— The _Invercargill_, fully laden from London, arrived off Wellington Heads one afternoon. A fine southerly breeze was blowing. Very impatient to get anchored, Captain Bowling decided to sail right in without the assistance of a tug. But just as he got well up the entrance, the wind suddenly veered right round to the northward and blew hard, and as his ship was well up inside Barrett’s Reef by this time, things began to look rather serious. Notwithstanding his many difficulties—for the slightest error or hesitation in timing the order of the different manœuvres meant disaster—old Bowling managed everything like clockwork, and the _Invercargill_ dropped her anchor off Kaiwarra, just as darkness fell. The _Invercargill’s_ last passage under the British flag in 1904 was her worst; in it she weathered out the biggest gale of Captain Bowling’s experience. She sailed from Sydney, N.S.W., on the 27th August, 1904, loaded with wheat, being bound to Queenstown for orders. On the 30th September she was caught in a Cape Horn snorter, her cargo shifted to port, her port bulwarks were carried away and for some time she lay on her beam ends. At last by hard work the cargo was man-handled to the windward side, she righted and continued her passage. But once again she ran into heavy weather, this time in the Atlantic in 45° N., 20° W., and the morning of the 8th December found her battling with a heavy gale from N.W., the weather being clear. The entry in the log at 4 p.m. said:— Hard squalls and high confused sea, vessel labouring heavily and shipping great quantities of water fore and aft.