Awe-inspiring footage of windjammer Peking rounding the horn in 1929

‘It was like the bottom of Niagara Falls’ – These are the words of the inimitable Capt Irving Johnson as the windjammer Peking rounded Cape Horn in 100kt winds in 1929. Sailors cling to wildly bucking and swaying yards as green water roars along the deck, hundreds of feet below.

It’s a long film, but it’s 30 minutes of astounding black and white footage of the dying days of the age of sail. Peking, which was a museum ship in New York, but has now been relocated to Hamburg, was one of the last windjammers in the nitrate and wheat trade.