Yacht has trouble

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32970, 17 July 1972, Page 14

Yacht has trouble

The protest yacht Wanea, which left Dunedin 17 days ago on the first leg of its mission to the nuclear test zone at Mururoa, arrived in Christchurch early yesterday —and is unlikely to go much further.

“The engine has packed up, we blew out our storm jib last night, and we’re just about out of money,” said John Humphries, one of the two-man crew, yesterday afternoon.

Humphries, aged 21, and Stuart Pilbrow, aged 27, were both students at Otago University but gave up their studies to join the now dwindling armada of vessels bound for the test zone. So far they have spent three days in Oamaru and 11 in Timaru. The long stay in Timaru was to overhaul the 28ft sloop’s auxiliary engine and, as they told reporters there, “to get everything tidied up and fix a few leaks” because, as Mr Pilbrow said, “it won’t all be plain sailing.” It was not. The engine seized less than 24 hours out of Timaru and, while off Banks Peninsula on Saturday evening, the little double-ended yacht struck foul weather. “We blew out the storm jib and, streaming just about everything from the bow to steady us, we were driven stemwards by the wind and seas. We must have been just yards off Akaroa head but we managed to squeeze through,” said Mr Humphries.

The Wanea arrived in Lyttelton at 3 a.m. yesterday.