YACHTSMEN WELCOME VON LUCKNER

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 153, 25 March 1938, Page 5

YACHTSMEN WELCOME VON LUCKNER

Presented With Burgee FOLLOWED THE EXAMPLE OF DRAKE AND MORGAN About 200 Wellington yachtemeu, representing all the principal harbour clubs, assembled last evening at the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club beadquarters at the boat harbour, to welcome Count Felix von Luckner. He was given au enthusiastic reception, and was presented with the club burgee. . “Count you Luckner has proved himself to be oue of the greatest sailors in the world; he has travelled thousands of miles in an 18-foot open boat, with only a foot of freeboard,” said the club commodore, Mr. W. T. Barton. “We yachtsmen look upon it as a feat to cross Cook Strait in stormy weather, but the Count made a long sea journey in a boat very little bigger than the dinghies we carry ou our decks. Not only as a yachtsman do we welcome him, but as a gallant gentleman, and we should like him to accept our burgee. It is only on very rare occasions that our burgee is presented.”

“I shall be proud to fly your standard at my mast, and after I return to Germany to my home, it shall bang in my castle,” said the Count, when Mr. Barton banded him the tricolour bunting, quartered and surmounted by a golden crown, indicating the status of the club. Count von Luckner said that like all sailors he had the highest respect for the flags of other nations. He was proud to have sailed under the British and Norwegian ensigns, as well as under that of Germany. Sailors were united by bonds deeper than ordinary folk. He had fought at Jutland, when thousands of tons of missiles made the sea a maelstrom, and the two greatest fleets on the high seas met in battle, but when they went back to port they felt no hatred, only a deep admiration for their opponents. As a boy he had dreamed, like other boys, of being a buccaneer, he said; but unlike others he had fulfilled his desire. He had followed the example set him by the English seafarers of the past, Francis Drake and Henry Morgan, who raided the commerce routes of the Spanish Main, when he conceived the idea of converting au oldfashioned sailing vessel into an armed sea raider.