A SOLITARY SAILOR.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 22 November 1924, Page 12

A SOLITARY SAILOR.

CROSSING THE PACIFIC ALONE. “Alain Gerbault, the young Frenchman who last year crossed the. Atlantic alone in his little sailing boat, the Firecrest, has left France en route for Neiv York, whence he is to sail on a lonely voyage across the-Pacific,” says the Paris correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph. “On this occasion Gerbault is crossing the Atlantic in the comfort of the ocean liner Paris, his little vessel having remained laid up in New York since he completed his daring Atlantic trip in her. The next voyage of the Firecrest is to be a good deal longer than the last, and Gerbault anticipates being away for about three years. From New York he intends to cruise in the Carribean Sea, then passing through the Panama Canal to cross the Pacific to Australia, calling en route at the Galapagos Islands, Marquesas, and Tahiti. On reaching the northern coast of Australia he will carry out a series of explorations there.

“As on his last adventurous voyage, Gerbault is to live with elementary simplicity on salt pork, pastes, such as macaroni and rice, w'ith water and a tea as his only beverages. In addition to the equipment he carried w’hen he sailed alone across the Atlantic, Gerbault is taking on his next trip a machine-gun. He will also have aboard fishing tackle and a case of books, including the works of Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, Coleridge, and Tennyson. A collection of old newspapers containing chess problems will also be on board, for Gerbault found the solution of these problems an absorbing occupation during the last lonely trip. ‘I became quite an expert in chess,’ he s^id.

“He is full of enthusiasm about his plans, and has not the least fear of the long days and nights of absolute solitude on the face of the world’s greatest ocean. “He, talks of the sea like a poet and a lover. ‘I was born at Dinard and went through the whole training of a sailor. To me the sea is a faithful companion whom I do not fear. Even when I sleep I am dreaming of the sea and hear the sound of its waves. I never feel alone when I am w r ith the sea.’ Human companionship on these voyages of adventure would, he thinks, entirely spoil their finest features. Only a man who is alone with the sea learns her secrets, he says.”