10,000 MILES BY SEA

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 16, 18 July 1936, Page 15

10,000 MILES BY SEA

STORY OF JOSEPH CONRAD

AUCKLAND XQ TAHITI

■ (Gopyri^)?;.y;;-.v..;.; :^;;:n "v 7 . , ; ■';:' All the maritime world oE'thb-Padficwondered coricernmg the fate^of the only British full-nggeiTship- now .in commission when Kugby broadcast the following message on June 13: "to all'ships .. M the Pacific—Any vessel sighting the yacht Joseph Conrad please iV° -°V S'- LoncJon> tlte y.ach't's position and whither bound." At that time every/port in the Pacific was agog with rumours that , the Joseph Conrad had been lost with' all : hands on her; voyagel " from. 1 '9 rd Howe Island to Tahiti.. Newspapers in New -Zealand and Australia were publishing reports'of "iiatch' covers aml- other apparently tell-tale wreckage washed up ot» the beach at P,oranga- •' hau, on the east coast of the North^lshmd of New y,Zealand.- There were, too, alarming stories of dytr^s-:signals,"ha;viiig ibeehf seeii at' night, during the height of a gale^oii^the"same inhospitable coast. Then, on June 20, four weeks after the ■ stout' little ship had last -^ been sighted as she be,at through Cook Strait, ajrfqars >ere disi pelled by a radiogram from Papeete, .Tahiti, that .ihe' Joseph Canrad was safe and sound. '' T ',' ".^ ' ' - ■ ■'■■■■ So much is history. Only Capjain':A.; J. 'yiUiers and the '' members of his crew can tell of the hardships /.suffered on the voyage of 10,000 miles sailing from. ■ Auckland,-and 80 days-from , Samarai, ere the Joseph Conrad, battered and badgered by £'ate and sea, limped into Papeete harbour on June 18. She had passed Raiwaewae Island, in the Austral Group, and Memetia, but could make neither, and was in sight of Tahiti four clays before reaching ~ the harbour. ~ .-■--- ~ . °

4 The Conrad, Which is only : % 146 tons' register, sailed' from- Ipswich, "England, on August 16, 1934. After 15 months of leisurely cruising she had 'fogged 30,000 miles'" on arrival at Sydney in November,. 1935; - She dropped anchor in Auckland, harbour on February 22, after "a fair "passage the Tasman, and five days later, the tiny full-rigged ship plucked her from the. mud of Stanley Bay, and, with yards' squared and trim. .stood up channel for the Pacific. She

>.was a brave sight," that glorious summer morning—ai^>rave anachronism, a- . little, ship;, jot singular: grace in hep: strong seaworthy lines. - * CONDEMNED TO SHIPBREAKERS. - Had' it. not %een : ior . Alan. J, ■• Villiers, sailor and author, she would never in the Pacific, for only a few .years.ago^!after half a century's service in the Baltic, as the Danish training ship Georg Stagei she was condemned to an inglorious end in the shipbreaker's "yard." "Destiny, in the

person of Captain Villiers, decreed otherwise. His practised eye, and his ship-lover's soul, saw in the tiny craft possibilities of a remarkable, circumnavigation of the globe under sail, the Red Ensign fluttering from the unique position- of the spanker gaff, the Joseph Conrad being the last British full-rigger.

Throughout the,. Eqglish-speaking world Captain Viili'srsV name is familiar to those who delight in tales of the sea; As the author of "By Way of Cape Horn,," "^almouthtfor-Orders,"

"Voyage of tfye Parma," , and other classics of the sea, he has brought to countless men and boys gripping'and authentic stories of modern sailing ships. He has brought to the fireside and the golden beaches of a summer holiday the Horn in its terrible fury, and the lives of the boy crews from northern countries '■ in facing the danger and cold .of that dread. promontory year after year. The sea to him is as music was to Johann Strauss. . And so the Joseph Conrad stands up

Rangitoto Channel, joggling slowly forward in a light breeze. By nightfall, ,Cape.'Brett and the last, of land have dropped below the horizori. Four days of idling on a windless expanse of blue, and then, of a sudden, the Joseph Conrad is running ■.close-hauled, under shortened canvas in murky, squally weather,. The -trucks .describe- wild arcs in the sky.: .The ship is smoking along at a good seven knots.

BABEL OF TONGUES.

By" day, on deck and in the rigging,

an unceasing babel of tongues gives clue to the polyglot nationality of the crew.: Not inappropriately has the Joseph Conrad been styled "a miniature League of Nations." Bosun and sailmaker converse in German, "Chips" punctuates hammer blows, with snatches of a song about his native Finland. From aloft floats down a cascade of Cockney, and the steward, poking his head from the galley door, mutters imprecations in' Swedish. Beneath the official English of the ship runs,an-und^cji^ei^^m.a43^ojj§tie^j

even to an occasional curse in unintelligible Afrikaans. The English, New; Zealand, and American cadets in the ship fear yet admire the flow of florid Australian invective used by Frank, the black-bearded third mate. Nino countries are represented among the crew—seven from England, five from New Zealand, four Australians, one South African, and a sprinkling of Americans, Germans, Danes, and Finns.

Trade wind days! The first flying fish comes aboard to be chopped up by the little Ipswich cook, and thrown to Joseph and Conrad, the cats which came aboard as kittens in the Solomon Islands. A graceful dolphin, magnificently blue under the surface, swims in- the- shadow of the jib boom, waiting for his dinner. A shark, lurking close to the ship, exerts a subtle fas T clnation over the lookout man aloft; If he should-fall . . . ! Now' a 1 sailing ship at sea seems the cleanestj most wholesome, and desirable place in the world. A- cool, dew-laden' breeze hums quietly in. the rigging. Sails are taut and/full. A symphony of canvas ■and cordage adumbrated against the sky. Under the moon, the rigging casts eerie,'phantom shadows upon the deck. Minute balls of phosphorescent fire, sprout ephemerally from the bovvs; flash for an instant, and are gone. Who would not be at sea?. ■ .

'■ And then the sun . comes up in a blaze of gold. Holystones are pushed resignedly over spotless decks. ' Unrusted:pins are chipped. Chipl.Chipi Chip! Soda wash the- deck house! Scrape, the capstan, bars! . .-.Who would be at sea? . • .'. '•■

.-■;■■: ■■■■"ALL HANDS TURN TO!": ! And. thus the Joseph Conrad sailed the tropic sea. But . .',' "Clew up t'gallants!"' Down comes the rain. The seas, mountainous and green, menace the tiny ship. Three whistles! All hands turn to, to shorten sail. There is every portent of a hurricane. Wind shrieks in the rigging, the lee channels smoke along in. clouds of spume and

spray. . ~ . And so to Bramble Haven', there to await an opportunity to make a passage inside the Conflict Islands. After a day or so in exploration ashore, the voyage is continued to Moresby Island, anchor being dropped in the historic China Straits, through whictf the whole of the trade between Australasia and the East passed in the colourful days prior to the opening "up of Torres Straits. '. .-. .

Then the thrill of landing on Samarai; and a stroll through the quaint tropi4 cal town. On foot the island is circled at a leisurely pace in half an hour. At night there is the luxury of dinner/ in the Cosmopolitan Hotel. New faces; fresh food, gaiety, all ■ have a tonic effect-The Joseph Conrad, goes along* side the .pier for water and supplies; A cricket XI plays a shore team, the Conrad boys all out for 26! Samarai replies with one wicket down for 68, and retires! ' ', ' ■■■■• >

(To be Continued.)