WORLD CRUISE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 99, 24 October 1938, Page 5

WORLD CRUISE

AUXILIARY YACHT

ADVENTUROUS VOYAGE

WOMAN COMMANDER

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, October 23.

In the course of a world cruise, which began two years ago, the 73ft ketch-rigged auxiliary yacht Vanora arrived at Auckland today. It will finish when the owner, Mrs. Marion Rice Hart, is temporarily tired of her Wanderings. Before then the 'Vanora will stay at Auckland for probably a month, and will then sail for New York by way of Cape Horn. Mrs. Hart is an American, who is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institqe of Technology. She was formerly a research worker for a large American electrical company. She was once arrested during the Great War while on a geological survey of the West Point Military Academy sector, and was held as a spy until her'identity was established. More recently she has spent several years as a sculptor. Her ownership of the Vanora dates back to a day over two years ago when she was at Montfavet, in France.

"I was tired of being responsible for so many things and people," says Mrs. Rice Hart. "I wanted to lead a carefree, gipsy life, and drift about1 the world, going where I pleased with no cares or troubles and contemplating! the works of God." PURCHASE OF BOAT. She decided to buy a yacht. She had never done any small-boat sailing in her life, and knew nothing of practical navigating. Her .search for a suitable vessel led her first of all to Cannes, then to England, on to the United States, and finally back again to England, where the Vanora was discovered at Cowes. The yacht had already made one world cruise under the same name as the possession of Lieutenant-Commander Hollins, R.N. It did not on that occasion visit New Zealand. . .

Mrs. Hart bought the yacht for something over £700, and spent several more hundreds on fitting her out. To« save money, Mrs. Hart,.a nephew, Paul Perez, who is making the cruise with her, a Greek woman doctor of philosophy, and a young English sculptor and his wife, did the chipping, scraping, painting, and the general work of getting the Vanora ready for sea. -

The cruise , started from Cowes in August, 1936. At this stage, Mrs. Rice Hart Had no intention of doing her own navigating, but instead, she said, she looked forward to the comfortable and lazy life of owner-pas-stenger. The dismissal of her first licensed captain because he was. going to take the yacht to sea with rigging so rotten that it came apart at a pull, did not shake her faith in the kind of life she would enjoy on such a cruise. .

Mrs. Hart's second master mariner set sail for Brest. He was slightly surprised, she said, when the port he reached proved to be Binic de St. Brieue. Another captain who was engaged, a Rumanian, could not sail after all, because his wife would not let him, and still another was dismissed after it was found that his ship s log : consisted-''c-f .thermometer read-

"^Finally, Mrs." Hart decided to become her own' skipper. She she had learned navigation from books as she went along and, so far, the Vanora had escaped shipwreck. Her crew had changed from time to time, and she had stopped one or two. fist fights among some of those who had gone. -In Addition to herself and her nephew, the other member of the original crew who arrived at Auckland is Mr. John Smith, from Bath, who acts as cook. Her engineer is a Greek, Mr. Emanuel , Papadimitrius. Two New Zealanders who- helped to bring the Vanora to Auckland from. Noumea, her last port of call, are Messrs..Leonard: Clarke and R. Fmdlayson, who left Auckland some months ago as members of the crew of the Auckland yacht Seaward, which has just returned from a Pacific cruise. OUT-OF-THE-WAY PLACES. Mrs. Hart did not at first intend to come to New Zealand. After sailing through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal and calling at Aden, Ceylon, the Netherland Indies, Komodo Island, where the crew hunted giant lizards, New Guinea,. and New Caledonia, it was intended to avoid the typhoon latitudes and sail .back to New York .by way of Tahiti and the Panama' Canals "We suddenly decided it would be fun to 'sail- through the Straits of Magellan,"/ said Mrs.. Hart, "and so we came on down -from Noumea to New Zealand. We-have been on the coast trying to' get into Auckland for the last five days after 1? days from Noumea." The yacht was becalmed off North Cape on October 15, and last Monday it' was"hove-to to escape the fury of a southerly storm. Mrs. Hart said they almost went on to the Hen and Chickens, and so on Tuesday morning they put out seaward in case they were driven on to the Four Kings. The only' chart Mrs. Hart had was one for'the whole of the New Zealand coast, and consequently the naviga-1 tion to Auckland was done very care-| fully. The yacht passed Tiritiri at 4 a.m.- yesterday and anchored for thej night, being towed, in this afternoon, an assistance for which the owner said she was very grateful.