Off To See The Esmeralda

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31145, 23 August 1966, Page 13

Off To See The Esmeralda

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, August 21. Four young Northcote boys spent two hours and a half today in shallow, seven-foot tin boats sailing across Auckland Harbour to see the Chilean barquentine, Esmeralda. Their escapade was brought to an end when coast guards ordered the boys to hand over their four flimsy boats to them —but not before the boys had completed the crossing, cruised round and touched Esmeralda, and tied up their

craft underneath the ferry wharf. The boys found the boats—which looked like parts of tin packing cases, each about a foot deep, 2ft 6in across with paddles fashioned out of light wood—at Takapuna on Saturday. They took them to Shoal Bay from where they started the harbour crossing this morning. The boys were Thomas Bell,

aged 14, his brother Glen, aged 13, Bobby Parsons, aged 13, and Fred Winthrop, aged 13. During the journey two launches and two catamarans passed them and at One stage water lapped over the sides of the boats. They cruised round the Esmeralda before being taken on a coast guard launch and returned home. Bobby Parsons regarded the

whole escapade as an adventure. “I wanted to cross the harbour to see the boat. I wanted adventure. There is nothing much doing about here. I didn’t think about the danger. I kept my mind off it. I didn’t have the money to.go across the bridge.” All the boys could swim, said Glen Bell. The boys’ parents thought they had been boating on a local stretch of water. Mr R. Reid, master of the coast guard vessel, Lady Rangi, said three of the boats were smashed up. The fourth would be kept and put on display to warn others against trying such a trip.