UNDER POWER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 35, 11 February 1939, Page 7

UNDER POWER.

BIG BARQUE LEAVES. NO WIND FOR HER SAILS. TWO MEN STILL MISSING. Tall, spare masts merged into the morning mist beyond Rangitoto Island to-day as the German barque Konnnodore Jolmsen, largest sailing vessel in the world, bade Auckland anothor farewell. She has gone back to her wanderings. This time lier course takes her to South Australia, where she is to load wheat for Europe. Hundreds of people who from waterfront suburbs watched the barque's stately form dwindle against the northern horizon were again robbed by the weather of the spectacle of a sailer under sail. There was scarcely a breath of wind and by the time she was out of sight past Tiri she was still moving under the power of her engines and her masts were still bare. For all that, however, she made an appealing picture. It was not without ceremony that the Konimodorc Johnson cast off from her berth and was drawn out into the stream by the two tugs Te' Awliina and William C. Daldy. Before the group of people who had gathered on the wharf to see her go, her smartly uniformed cadets stood in line on the deck and at the call of Captain <i. Clausen came to attention and gave three rousing cheers as their tribute to Auckland's hospitality. Two were still missing from their ranks. An Austrian cadet and a German steward, alleged to have failed to return from leave on Tuesday night, were unreported when the barque sailed. | Warrants had earlier been issued for their arrest.

Thanks For Hospitality.

Before the barque departed Captain Clausen expressed his sincere thanks for the line hospitality he and his ofiicers and crew had received in Auckland. They ,were grateful, he said, for the kindness shown them by members of the Flying Angel Mission to Seamen, the German Club, the Ladies' Harbour Lights Guild, and many people who had taken care of the boys. He wished also to express appreciation of the courtesy with which thev had been treated by the harbourmaster, Captain H. H. Sergeant. "We take to sea with us very happy memories of the people of Auckland," Captain Clausen said. Yesterday he left a donation to the Flying Angel Missions, ■together with pictures of the ship. The William C. Daldy escorted the barque as far as Xortli Head, and thou cast off, while the ship continued outwards under her own power. A light breeze was springing up by the time she ! cleared Tiritiri, ami it was thought that it would not be long before her sails [would be set and her journey really under way.