If you like this stuff:’one of my all time favorite books is “The Last Grain Race” by Eric Newby. He signed on as a sailor on the Last sail shipment of grain from Rotterdam to Sydney in 1939 (just as WWII was breaking out in Europe). As is typical for him he knew nothing about sailing when he signed on. He’s a great writer and it’s an exciting story.
Another good one is "A Man for All Oceans" about Joshua Slocum. Slocum was the captain of several large commercial sailing vessels in the late 1800's before his famed solo trip around the world. Over the course of his life he also witnessed the transition of commercial shipping from sailing ships to steam ships.
It's a book about a South Easter ship doing a coal delivery from East to West coast of the USA via Cape Horn. The book doesn't seem to be very popular, but IMO the most vivid depiction of merchant navy under sail, written by someone who lived it.
Wonderful fey footnote about the word "fok" and "fokking" -All my WWII escape books from this era have solders saying "mucking hell" for much the same reasons...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Grain_Race