M 37-TON YAWL

Evening Star, Issue 25993, 7 January 1947, Page 7

M 37-TON YAWL

ADVENTUROUS VOYAGERS TO NEW ZEALAND MISHAP AT START (From Walter A. Little). LONDON, December. 28. Nine young people, who set sail in the 37-ton yawl Nebula on a voyage of adventure to New Zealand from Brighton on December 22, had an early and unpleasant taste of it on Christmas Day. Their boat was driven ashore in a gale near Middleton Point, Sussex, and some of them had to swim for their lives. The only New Zealander in the crew, Miss Joyce Coilison, escaped in a small boat with four others, including Tony Johnson, 13-year-old son of the yawl’s owner and skipper, Mr H. C. Johnson, a former Brighton business man. The other four jumped over the side, and clinging to debris were washed ashore. Coast guards called out the Selsey lifeboat, but couldnot get'to the' Nebula owing to the heavy seas. However, the lifeboat stood by until the nine adventurers made the shore safely. When the yawl ran into difficulties, she was returning from the Channel Islands with engine trouble. Although driven hard aground, the Nebula was not seriously .damaged, and her undaunted crew intend to make a fresh start as soon as. they put things ship shape. ‘ Miss Coilison collected her clothes from the yawl on' Boxing Day and returned by train to her home in Tankerton, Kent. The others were put up over Christmas by the people of Middleton, near Littlehampton ; The skipper said: “We aimed to reach 1 New Zealand by next November, just taking it easily, and I think we shall still do it in the Nebula. I positively mean to get. there, and I feel that the crew are with me, too. It may take three days or longer to get the boat off.” One of the>. crew, Mr Leslie Carr, aged 23, of Leeds, said they were all emigrants', except Miss Coilison. They left England’s shores in search of adventure, and had already had their first taste of it.