Chichester Makes Slow Progress

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31346, 17 April 1967, Page 13

Chichester Makes Slow Progress

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

LONDON, April 16.

Sir Francis Chichester gave his position on Thursday as 22 South, 20.53 West. Originally he had hoped to keep in radio contact with Buenos Aires until he reached the equator, but bad atmospheric conditions in the South Atlantic had made this impossible since April 6.

As he is still 22 degrees south of the Equator radioing over such a long distance is extremely difficult But last Tuesday he contacted the Brent radio-telephone terminal in North London at a prearranged time to send a birthday message to Lady Chichester.

Then on Thursday he managed to contact Brent again, and, although the circuit was very poor, the operator could read his position. 90 Miles a Day

The “Sunday Times” yachting correspondent writes: “It appears that Sir Francis Chichester has made comparatively slow progress over the last week, not much more than 90 miles a day. Indeed, he reported on Tues-

day that he had experienced 1000 miles of variable winds. On the brighter side, he completed the circumnavigation of the globe at 11 p.m. that night. “He appears to have been forced by wind vagaries about 200 miles to the east of the route which the old sailing ships followed at this time of the year.

“It is to be hoped that he will soon sail into the southeast trades: these should help Gipsy Moth IV back into her proper stride.

“My estimate of her position for last Sunday was overoptimistic: she still has about a week’s hard sailing, if not more, to the Equator.” (Copyright Sir Francis Chichester and "The Times.")