Rose Sails In To Great Welcome

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31723, 5 July 1968, Page 9

Rose Sails In To Great Welcome

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) PORTSMOUTH, July 4. Southsea’s yachting greengrocer, Mr Alec Rose, sailed his ketch Lively Lady triumphantly across the finish line of his round-the-world solo voyage at 10.52 ajn. today, watched by at least 250,000 on shore and by millions of televiewers.

A gun was fired from the Royal Albert Yacht Club in Southsea as Lively Lady crossed the line 325 sailing days after she had left.

Immediately, sirens and hooters blared from the armada .of small craft escorting Rose to his berth, and a wave of cheering went up from the crowds lining the pebble beach.

Flare pistols were fired from several of the escort Seven minutes later, Lively Lady came alongside a Royal Navy craft, from which Mr Rose’s wife, Dorothy, stepped aboard the ketch for their reunion. Mr and Mrs Rose went below, and when they reappeared Mrs Rose was carrying “Algy,” her husband’s mascot bear. Neat and tidy to the last, Mr Rose secured the sails of Lively Lady as the welcoming crowd waited for him to go ashore. Royal Navy officers trying to shepherd the convoy through specially - buoyed channels to the finish line bawled stern commands through megaphones to the hundreds of pleasure boats trying to get near. Mr Rose, standing in the cockpit of Lively Lady while taking frequent draughts from

a tin mug, looked dazed as he stared at the bustling fleet. The breeze was so faint that the lone yachtsman dropped behind schedule when about six miles out.

Lively Lady’s sails looked stained and worn, but her deck, scourged by harsh seas, had a well-scrubbed look. Three miles out, the yachtsman was joined on board by Sir David Mackworth, an old friend who flew to New Zealand in February with replacement parts for the damaged mast fittings. Later, customs men boarded the ketch to confirm that Mr Rose had acquired no dutiable goods on the homeward leg of his voyage. Mrs Rose waved repeatedly to her husband as she was taken out to Lively Lady to a background of ship’s sirens. Along the sea-front at Portsmouth crowds gathered before dawn to catch the first glimpse of Mr Rose entering his home port in trilumph

almost a year after setting out without fuss. An hour after dawn crowds five deep ringed the launching enclosure, watching the fleet of small ships setting out to sea—from tiny overloaded dinghies to oceangoing catamarans. To handle the crowds all police leave was cancelled in Portsmouth and to mark the occasion bars had permission to stay open 90 minutes longer. Mr Rose had six miles to go when shore watchers caught their first glimpse on the horizon of a cluster of white sails of the accmpanying vessels. The two Navy minesweepers which have escorted the Lively Lady from the Atlantic approaches to the Channel handed over escort duties for the last leg to a barge carrying Queen Elizabeth’s official harbourmaster.

The accompanying flotilla grew as a steady flow of small boats put out from the shore.