From Hong Kong To N.Z. By Junk

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30028, 12 January 1963, Page 3

From Hong Kong To N.Z. By Junk

The Voyage of the Golden Lotus. By Brian Clifford and Neil Illingworth. A. H. and A. W. Reed. 244 PP. The voyage of the Golden Lotus from Hong Kong to New Zealand last year must surely win for her a high place in the annals of deepsea cruising. Brian Clifford, her owner-skipper, has told a modest tale of adventure to Neil Illingworth, but from it emerges a story of courage, endurance, skill and tenacity. The book is well illustrated with photographs, charts and diagrams. The Golden Lotus wafe built for Clifford in Hong Kong. He and the builder talked through an interpreter and by signs. It is a pity that the name junk is used to describe the native sailing vessels of the Chinese seas, for it has another and perhaps better-known meaning; but those who confuse the meanings make a grave mistake. To Western eyes there may be much about a junk and her rig that is strange; but it must never be forgotten that into her design has gone hundreds of years of seafaring experience, and into her construction the inborn skill of generation after generation of shipbuilders. So it was with the Golden Lotus. She was built virtually by eye, with aid of diagrams sketched in the sand with a stick, and except for a stronger rudder attachment and a more robust cabin top she was a typical Chinese junk. And a noble little ship she proved herself—seaworthy and comfortable, and m all respects suitable tor the job she was meant to do. It is easy to understand her owner’s pride. True, she had some disadvantages when compared with a Westerntype yacht, but the perfect ocean cruiser has not yet been built.

Of her crew of four young New Zealanders, two, the skipper and his brother, are professional sailors; but going to sea in a freighter is not the same as going to sea in a yacht, as they suspected and later proved. The course of the Golden Lotus took her first through the South China Sea to Singapore, and high winds and heavy seas provided an immediate and severe test of ship and crew. From Singapore rite went south and east through the Sunda Strait, across the Indian Oeean to Timor and Thursday Island. Then followed a long hard slog down the east eoast of Australia to Brisbane and Sydney. The last leg was a mid-winter crossing of the Tasman and a triumphal

arrival at Mangonui, where the crew were reunited with their North Auckland families. This Is an excellently-told story of modern adventure. The reader shares with the young men aboard the Golden Lotus their anxieties and miseries, as well as their moments ot exhilaration, satisfaction and triumph. And if anyone should ask why they did it, the answer is that man still likes to pit his strength and skill against the forces of nature, whether it be at sea. in the mountains Or in the air.