Captain Seeks a Sea-Going Cat to Sign on for a Trip Around the World, New York Times (1922)

Captain Edwin Dyason, master of the freighter Woodfield will welcome any ablebodied seafaring cat wishing to join the crew of his vessel, sailing today for Manila and China. “We missed the ship’s cat shortly after we put into port here,” said the Captain. “Her name was Cleopatra. She joined on in Fremantle, Australia and did one voyage with us. Now she has left us flat.”

One of the party offered to give the Captain a fine angora kitten, but he refused the gift saying “It would be useless to try and keep it onboard. Only seagoing cats are any use on a vessel.”

“Joking aside, sea cats are a race in themselves. Why a land-lubber cat wouldn’t know how to take care of itself in a rough sea. But a sailor cat knows just what pile of ropes to hide under. It stays there and waits for fair weather before it reappears to demand rations.

“No, the seafaring cat is no joke. What is more, plenty of them have never been on shore at all. They were born at sea, live on ships and when they die, they go down to Davy Jones’s locker.

“I’ll lay a wager we have a cat to replace the capricious Cleopatra before we leave the dock. What is more, the newcomer will undoubtedly bob up serenely of her own free will, having decided in her own clever feline brain that she would like to join us for the voyage” said Captain Dyason.

Captain Edwin Dyason was a Master Mariner and Ship’s Captain who married Ellen Gertrude Foreman in 1893, they had four children. Captain Dyason enjoyed the company of cats on his ship. Along with seafaring his hobby was playing music. He had a special seaworthy phonograph and music cabinet containing over a thousand records. During the First World War he was a master of the Welsbach Hall which was torpedoed in the Mediterranean. He died in Poole, Dorset in 1937.