Oldest Raftsman Now Ready To Sail Again

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30430, 2 May 1964, Page 5

Oldest Raftsman Now Ready To Sail Again

[By

JACK PERCIVAL

in the “Sun-Herald. ** Reprinted by arrangement J

r FHE world’s oldest ocean raftsman who sailed his crazy craft A 7450 miles from Peru to Samoa last year plans in a few weeks to continue his voyage from Apia to Sydney. He is William Willis, an American, aged 70. He wants to show the world, using his raft, Age Unlimited, that he is capable of sailing anywhere, regardless of his years.

His 130-day drift from Lima to Apia last year was a horror voyage, jinxed by a defective rudder. When he went overboard to repair it, he was surrounded by sharks which were kept away by a cage of bamboo spears and by towing a dead shark from the stern.

He was pounded by huge seas which forced him on to the sharpened bamboos. His stomach was gashed and he had to give up. But not before he nearly lost his life by drifting away from Age Unlimited in a kyak. He had to row at double time to catch up with the “mother ship,” which, fortunately, didn’t have its mainsail set.

If the raft’s mainsail had been unfurled he would have died of thirst in the kyak. Willis claims that last year’s adventure, which had none of the “refined conveniences” of Kontiki, was nothing.for an experienced old-time gold prospector who served his blue - water apprenticeship aboard a square-rigger. The bearded, leather-faced adventurer’s raft already has been shipped to Samoa for his next trans-Pacific attempt. It is 30 feet long with a miniature triangle for’ard like a dwarfed Eiffel Tower. There is a ladder up this mast, and when he scrambles up it, Willis makes his navigation sightings. Accommodation aboard is not as comfortable as on some of Sydney’s home-made trimarans. When the seas get rough, he has to lash himself down. Once when he climbed the mainmast, ladder last July, he hit his head on a steel strut and fell towards the ocean. He was saved when his legs got tangled in a mass of dangling twine. On last year’s drift, he. left his wife behind. But he took along two cats named Aussie and Kiwi. The cats thrived on a diet of freshly-caught fish, canned meat and distilled sea-water. At Lima before he took off, he told Mrs Willis he would meet her at a New York hotel. “When I got to the hotel, she said, “it was booked out. The next thing I heard from him was when I received a cable saying he was out of cash.”

Mrs Willis wants to join her husband on the new attempt. She said, “I am sick of waiting. I must go along. It is too much for him.”’

When it leaves Samoa. Ag? Unlimited’s track will take it over the route of the ill-fated Joyita which was discovered drifting, abandoned like the Marie Celeste. Joyita also left from Apia. If things work out to sailing plans, the raft will be carried by Pacific winds and currents past lonely Wallis Island, north of the Fiji Islands and through the New Hebrides. Seasonal winds will then drift it north of New Caledonia. The first sight of Australia will be near the southern end

of the Barrier Reef, oceanographers think. The odds against Willis’ success are almost insurmountable.

There are a thousand reefs like the one which ended his

last year's drift at Samoa. There his flimsy raft was tossed clear over the coral by a huge comber. Before he renews his battle against the elements, the defiant and determined old man of the sea will have to get a clearance from Samoan port authorities that his craft is seaworthy. He also will have to satisfy, maritime officers that he is a competent sailor, and that his stores will include sufficient food and water for at least four months. Furthermore, the clearance authorities are going to insist that his raft is equipped with a radio transmitter of sufficient power to keep him in

touch with all major South Pacific listening posts.