PACIFIC DRIFT BY RAFT

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27914, 10 March 1956, Page 9

PACIFIC DRIFT BY RAFT

Crew Rescued By Navy Ship

(Rec. 9 p.m.) BALBOA, March 8. Four men and a woman, who spent 90 days aboard a storm-tossed raft in the Pacific, landed today from a United States Navy transport at Balboa in the Canal Zone—far from the South Sea islands they had hoped to reach. The U.S.S. Greenville Victory, a supply ship of the Navy’s Antarctic expedition, brought the crew of the r &ft Cantuta to Balboa. It had picked them up last Friday about 150 miles from Clipperton Island in the Galapagos.

The raft itself was unloaded from the Grenville Victory’s deck and towed to a dock in Balboa harbour. The leader of the voyage, Eduardo Ingris, a naturalised Peruvian, already is planning another attempt to drift across the Pacific. He said he would go alone next time, and even has set a sailing date—July 28. 1957. Ingris said he had intended simply to replenish the raft’s water and food and continue the expedition, but Navy officers convinced him that it would require a hurricane to blow it to a favourable current.