"STRANGE SEA ROAD."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 273, 17 November 1936, Page 6

"STRANGE SEA ROAD."

WINDJAMMER'S LONG VOYAGE.

A voyage of 20,000 miles by the famous windjammer C. B. Pedersen in the most important oceans of tlie globe as well as in the wake of Bligh's epic passage through Torres Strait, is described by Warren Bednall in "Strange Sea Road." * The vessel put out from Melbourne carrying eight passengers— three men, four women and a schoolboy— intending to round Cape Horn, but a furious winter in the Southern Ocean impelled the captain to take the unprecedented decision to " 'bout ship" and set a course upon which it is said 110 other sailing vessel of the size of the Pedersen has ever dared to venture. Of course there was a stowaway, a woman, but she proved valuable to the ship's company as a worker, a wit and an entertainer, as well as an arbiter in many unpleasant situations that developed in the course of the voyage. Life on board forms a rich subject for exploitation throughout the book, especially when sailing becomes monotonous, and the author has a good deal to tell

of the effects of five months of confinement in the poop or the fo'c'sle in which there are widely divergent and clashing temperaments; of hostilities between captain and crew and of the complex politics of the windjammer on an extended voyage.

Of much interest is the narrative of the passage of Torres Strait, a brilliant feat of seamanship. Visits were paid to coral islands, and there occurred the extraordinary incident of "the boy in the bathtub." Search parties were sent out in various directions to scour the nearby islands in search of the absentee, and a valuable wind was ignored in order that nothing should be left undone to secure the return of the young Swede. There is a hint in the story that some members of the crew were not altogether surprised at the disappearance of their mate, and the unconcern displayed by some as to his fate led to the belief that all were not completely ignorant of his whereabouts. It will be remembered that the plucky adventurer later came to Xew Zealand and secured congenial employment.

The voyage continued from the north of Australia across the long ocean to the Cape of Good Hope, thence, after a short period in port, northward through the Southern Atlantic. From the regions of the doldrums in equatorial latitudes to the hurricanes of the English Channel, took a surprisingly short time, and the Pedersen rounded Skagcrrak in a gale, to .make a landfall on the coast of Sweden. The emotions stirred in the fartravelled crew at the sight, of their home after months of sailing are expressively recorded, and there is true pathos in the description of the dispersal of the ship's company, probably never to meet again. Twenty photographs, of which those taken at sea are excellent, are reproduced in the book.

* "Stranpre Sea RoacV : by Warren Beclnall (Jonathan Cape.)