{"product_id":"2026200017386-secondhand-barque-polly-woodside-rona","title":"Barque Polly Woodside (Rona)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Very good\u003cbr\u003ePages: Tanning and foxing\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFew vessels have sailed through history with as much resilience and romance as the iron-hulled barque Polly Woodside — also known as the Rona — a square-rigged sailing ship that braved the world's most treacherous waters in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Vin Darroch's meticulously researched account chronicles the remarkable life of this iconic vessel, from her construction in Belfast in 1885, through decades of hard commercial voyaging around Cape Horn, to her eventual preservation as a proud maritime monument in Melbourne, Australia. The narrative reconstructs the ship's working life with vivid authority, detailing the men who crewed her, the storms that tested her, and the cargoes that defined an era of sail.\n\nBeyond the logbook facts, Darroch's work stands as a tribute to the age of working sail and the communities — both ashore and at sea — that kept these great ships alive. Written with the precision of a historian and the passion of a seafarer, the book situates the Polly Woodside within the broader sweep of maritime trade and Australian heritage conservation. For anyone drawn to the romance of tall ships and the relentless pull of the open ocean, this account leaves one question unanswered: what other untold stories are locked within her iron ribs?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49210265108699,"sku":"2026200017386-SECONDHAND","price":15.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/5e7a3c0d-5267-49d0-b3f1-aa635496ae87.png?v=1788268341","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200017386-secondhand-barque-polly-woodside-rona","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}