The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST” THURSDAY, MAY 25, 1939. A Fanner Goes Sea

Northern Advocate, 25 May 1939, Page 6

The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST”

THURSDAY, MAY 25, 1939. A Fanner Goes Sea

Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper

AT one time the arrival of a small privately-owned yacht in New Zealand waters under her own sail was a rare and noteworthy event. But in recent years hundreds of people in various countries of the world have succumbed to the magnetism of a gypsy life at sea, and, consequently, the American yacht, Silver Spray, which arrived at Russell yesterday is only one among many such vessels which have visited New Zealand in the course of a leisurely ocean voyage, Mr. E. J. Thomas and his party, however, are people of perhaps more than usual interest. Most of those who go down to the sea in small ships are sailors, or yachtsmen of considerable experience. There have, it is true, been quite notable exceptions. Strout, the American yatchsman who sailed round New Zealand three or four years ago, was a school teacher whose previous knowledge of sailing, before setting out in the Idgrasil from his native Alabama, was purely theoretical. But to New Zealanders Mr. Thomas will be even more interesting as a spectacle because he was previously a dairy farmer who sold his farm because conditions were hopeless owing to heavy taxation. Here then, is the final refuge for those New Zealand dairy farmers who find prices and taxes too exorbitant, and the guaranteed price inadequate. Like Mr. Thomas, any farmer thus oppressed can sell his farm and build himself a yacht. But although this sounds a romantic enough course, it has occasional disadvantages. It takes people of unusual disposition and character to endure the discomforts and loneliness inseparable from long voyages in small boats. To the landsman the idea of putting to sea in a vessel only 30 or 40 feet long seems sheer foolhardiness, but it is not the danger that terminates most voyagings; it is the difficulty of finding congenial companions, who can live together in cramped surroundings, day after day, and week after week, without getting on each others’ nerves. Ralph Stock, the novelist, said that the greatest test of friendship was to live together in a small yacht on a long voyage. For this reason the most successful voyagers are those remarkable men who sail single handed—Captain Voss, Captain Slocum, and the Frenchman, Alain Gerbault, and some of those who have preferred their own company to other people’s, and consequently have had no trouble caused by quarelling or disagreements. To most people, however, the idea of sailing alone is repugnant. The austere and remote companionship of sun, moon and stars fails to allay the craving for human society. Many voyagers have solved the problem by taking their wives with them. This, again is the supreme test of domestic felicity, and quite' a number of couples, including, most notably, Mr and Mrs Strout, and Mr and Mrs Eiiing Tambs, appear to have passed it very successfully. The voyage of the Tambs family, indeed, will live long in the annals of ocean cruising. Setting out from, Norway in the stoutly "built Teddy, Mr and Mrs Tambs picked up a dog in Spain. In the Canary Islands the birth of a son to Mrs Tambs added another unit to the ship’s company. A month later the intrepid mother set out with her husband and small baby across the Atlantic in the Teddy. Surely no child was ever reared in a stranger environment, but he was the healthiest child imaginablo’Eveutually they reached New Zealand, where another child was born to Mrs Tambs, and named Huia as a compliment to Maoriland. It is sad to remember that their voyage ended at Kawau when they were wrecked when leaving the New Zealand coast, but fortunately they were all saved. Mrs Thomas, who has come from California in the Silver Spray, with her husband and daughter, declares that she has had enough of ocean cruising for the time being, on account of the cramped quarters, and will return to the U.S.A. a passenger ship. Hers is a viewpoint which the vast majoiity would share. Yet perhaps, when the time comes to leave the Silver Spray, Mrs Thomas may change her mind. On a palatial liner she may pine for the snug cabin of the yacht, and find an echo in her heart for the longing of the Sea Gypsy—“l must forth again to-morrow, With the sunset I must be, Hull down on the trail of rapture, In the wonder of the sea.”