SAILING ROUND THE WORLD

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 111, 6 November 1937, Page 26

SAILING ROUND THE WORLD

In seeking for fresh worlds' to conquer, adventurous, spirits naturally r*t the present time turn to the air. But epic achievement may be reached by turning back to the past, by employing the obsolete but picturesque methods of a hundred years ago. "Cruise of the Conrad," by Alan Villiers, reminds us of that fact. Mr. Alan Villiers does not care for aeroplanes. ' They have but one advantage—speed, and Mr. Villiers does not care for speed. But he can rapturise over a ship, and when he found the Georg Stage on the Copenhagen waterfront he had no doubt that it was the ship hs had been looking for,.. It was the last surviving frigate in'the'world. She had, he says, the lines of a frigate of a hundred years ago, the strength of a sperm whale in the ocean, and the grace of a' swan. We in this part of the world know her, but Mr. Villiers gives his readers some lovely photographs in his books. Renaming his find the Joseph Conrad, he decided that he would like to Bail her round the world, for no particular reason but his own pleasure, and least of all for publicity. I would make no films, advertise nothing, perform no stunts engage m no radio programmes." With very little money but limitless courage and enthusiasm, he gathered a crew and, in the autumn of 1934, set sail from Ipswich with thirty-two souls on board His course led him across the North Atlantic to New York, down to Rio, back across the South Atlantic to the Cape, up to Bali, Singapore, the Sulu SeT<where he ■ was .becalmed and needed the old 50 h p. engine his ship carried) to Tawi Tawi, the Celebes lea and the Pacific. Then the Carolines? the Trobriands, the SolomoV, Islands, and down to Sydney and Melbourne (his home town). There followed a little diversion taking some gold prospectors back through the treacherous Coral Sea to Samarai and then on to Tahiti, and the journey home to New York via the Horn leaving the Panama Canal for lesser and more hurried voyagers. Two years of sailing ■»* n6"l* 60,000 miles covered provide Mr. Villiers with mote than enough material for a tale which he tells excellently. There can be no other book like thi» again, for unfortunately there are no more ships 'like the Joseph Conrad. , THROUGH COOK STRAIT. . It was on the cards that the Joseph Conrad would call in at Wellington. but she passed through Cook Strau without doing so, and the following is what the skipper has to say about this part of the voyage:— ■ "I stood as near as I could to the northern shore, giving the rocks; a wide enough berth, and steered towards Pencarrow Head. It was early evening when we were near there; the night was coming down black and* threatening, with-the glass' dropping, and there could be no ■ thought c* standing off and on in those'dangerou* tidal waters. To go in at once buy provisions, and get out again would take at least two days; if I wasted a day hanging around, outside there was no ST whin we'might arrive at Tahit., and we had already been long on the way We saw the gasometers, a radio-station, houses, some ships coming out (of which the steamer Tamahine spoke us); but I saw no station with which I could communicate by visual signal, at that distance, and-we ha* no radio. So we knocked at Welling* tarfffiht door and sailed on again* and the good citizens, if they knew about it, must have wondered what the ship was doing. My New ZeaandS Pwho had hoped that night to telephone to their homes in Aucktond were'greatly disappointed, and they stood by the main hatch in some dejecU°a' sailed on; and no sooner had we come to the eastern end of the straij than the wind dropped utterly and *c set and the tide began to drift the ship dangerously towards Cape Fame*. Steadily, hour after hour,-I could see the ship being drifted, nearer an* nearer in towards the light; I could see the black shape of the rocks waiting*, there was no bottom and I could not anchor; there was no wind and I could not sail; I could do nothing. » would have been ironical to sail past WellingSi and then drift on Palliser.But the wind came again, and we hurried on We were .across the one nunaren, and eightieth meridian next day."