Fri trip 'no doddle’

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34046, 9 January 1976, Page 10

Fri trip 'no doddle’

| fX.Z. Press Association) \ AUCKLAND, Jan. 8. Mr Bernard Rhodes sailed a 22ft trimaran Esinglehanded from Britain to New Zealand, hut the voyage, he says, was ■a “doddle” compared with the Pacific voyaging of the peace vacht Fri.

The 32-year-old Englishman skippered the 63-year-old former Baltic trader on the opening leg of its peace journey in August. 1974, from New Zealand to Tahiti, and was sailing master on the voyage to Japan. [ He arrived back in New (Zealand today after spending five months helping to refit the Fri and a further six months teaching English while the Fri sailed on to Russia. Korea, and China. “I was utterly exhausted ■by the time we got to Japan,” said Mr Rhodes. “A [modern yacht is child's play ■ compared with the Fri. “It is difficult to answer the accusations that the people on the Fri are on a Pacific holiday because that is so fundamentally incorrect.” he said. The dozen or so crew, several of whom were New Zealanders, were dedicated, sincere people who were doing their best to spread the message of peace, he said. And the voyage was much tougher than most cruising bluewater yachtsmen would have experienced. Crew accommodation consisted of liberty bunks lashed in the [hold, in any sort of sea wet from the leaking decks. Cook,ing was done over a wood j stove.

“The Fri is just damned hard work,” said Mr Rhodes. “And its success cannot be calculated in terms of dollars. But it is sailing be-

(cause 15,000 people in New 'Zealand believed in peace and bought peace cards for it to deliver.” Mr Rhodes said he felt the voyage was serving a useful [purpose. The Fri had a tremendous reception in Japan, where she stayed for five months being refitted. The Japanese bought 20,000 cards for the Fri to distribute at other ports. Keeping the boat seaworthy was a constant battle of hard work and trying to [raise the money. The Japanese refit cost $15,000, the crew doing most of rhe labour, but the refit did not include any work on the interior or the decks.

Mr Rhodes, who skippered the yacht Spirit of Peace to Mururoa Atoll in 1973, says

he is a sailor first and pro-, tester second. But one thing that has disappointed him is I the general lack of interest or help shown for the Fri by most other yachtsmen. “I used to believe in the i brotherhood of the sea,” he said, ‘‘but it has not been I very evident towards the Fri. [Yachting seems to be [largely an Establishment thing. We have had some help from yachtsmen, but it I has not been very notice-[ able.” The Fri did not want her, voyage underwritten by a* wealthy sponsor or business. The voyage was to show the concern for peace of ordinary people. ! When last heard of, the IFri was in Hong Kong, where [she arrived on December 16 [after being refused entry to China.

The crew is hoping to obtain entry visas and make a return voyage to China.