Gustaf Erikson

He was famous for the fleet of windjammers he operated to the end of his life, mainly on the grain trade from Australia to Europe.

[2] By the late 1930s, the South Australian grain trade was virtually the only profitable use for windjammers, and then only if the ship owner minimized costs as much as possible.

Erikson's large four-masted barques would routinely sail on voyages of 30,000 nautical miles (56,000 km) with less than 30 crew.

[3] In 1935, 19-year old Richard Brinsley Sheridan published his book ‘’Heavenly Hell: The Experiences of an Apprentice in a Four-Mast Barque’’, describing his ten-months in Erikson’s barque Lawhill[4] A young Eric Newby sailed to Australia on Moshulu in 1938–1939, as part of the South Australian grain trade.

Newby chronicled his trip in The Last Grain Race and Learning the Ropes, where he wrote that Erikson was both respected and reviled by the crew, who knew him only as "Ploddy Gustav".