Raft Voyager Reaches Samoa

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30287, 13 November 1963, Page 19

Raft Voyager Reaches Samoa

(Special Cerrsspondeat N.ZJPA.)

APIA, November 12. With bls raft, Age Unlimited, flying the Stars and Stripes upside down as a sign of dtotresa, the 79-year-old lone seafarer. Willtam Willis, beached at Faleula, about six miles from Apla, at about 6 o'clock last evening. He was first sighted, but not identified, at 3.30 p.m. heading towards Apia in a moderate sea. An hour later he was recognised to be in difficulties as he drifted further along the coast Showing remarkable seamanship. he sailed his aimostunmanageable craft through a narrow reef opening and drifted ashore inside the lagoon at Faleula in water too shallow for a rescue launch to reach him.

The first man he spoke to after his 130-day passage from Callao was a Samoan policeman who waded out to the raft lying at high tide in calm water on some rocks only a few yards from the shore. Cats for Company Wearing a white singlet and dungarees and heavily bearded, Willis appeared fit and well after a passage of 7450 miles, accompanied only by a tomcat. Kiki, and a doctored female cat, Aussie. He was disappointed that he had to break his cruise at Samoa.

"I wanted to go straight to Sydney," he said. “When I left Callao on July 4 I cleared for Sydney and would not have stopped here if I could have helped it” He said that 500 miles out of Callao both rudders started to break up. "I spent days over the stern hanging on by my teeth trying to make repairs but it was no good. I thought of returning to Ecuador and making another balsa raft, which is better than steel, but it was too late. “Since then I have been virtually drifting at the mercy of the wind and the tides,” he said. He said that since rough weather three days ago he had been sending out an SOS continuously every 15 minutes but his radio could not have been working. In Good Condition

Two two-masted 32ft by 20ft raft looks ship-shape with rope coiled neatly on the deck and drums of kerosene, unused throughout the journey, well lashed down. There is a small cabin near the stern beside the wheel. “Living quarters,” snorted Willis.

“My living quarters are right here in the open on the deck beside the wheel. The

cabin is merely a place where I keep my sextant and things like that. Willis said that he had pinpointed his position by sextant readings. He was proud of his feat No Sign Of Senility “Most men of my age have 16 different kinds of heart diseases but not me." he said. Willis is spending the night on board and hopes to have the raft towed into Apia tomorrow to get the rudders repaired before continuing his journey to Australia. “After 130 days at sea I am looking forward to spending a few nights in comfort at a hotel,” he said.