YACHTING EPISODES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18275, 16 December 1922, Page 1 (Supplement)

YACHTING EPISODES.

LORD DUNRAVEN'S BOOK.

Lord Dunraven, politician, yachtsman, traveller and a host of other things which make life enjoyable to himself and interesting to others, has "jotted down" his reminiscences. In two large volumes— and mostly from memory, as his diary went down with Va'kyrie 11. at Hunter's Quay—he records the outstanding incidents of a life crammed full of adventures abroad and of usefulness at home.

Lord Dunraven relates an amusing adventure with the ex-Kaiser in 1893, when he won two Queen's Gups hut had to give up one of them to avoid serious trouble •between the Royal Yacht Squadron and the Kaiser. Lord Dujiraven's Valkyrie had made a technical error at the Warner, which had no effect on the race. "But the Kaiser protested against me for having passed the wrong side of a mark." The late King, then Prince of Wales, and Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron, sent the Vice-Commodore off to explain that as the Warner was not a mark, as was clearly set out in the sailing instructions, he hoped the protest would be withdrawn.

"Ormonde reported," Lord Dunraven continues, "that they were very angry and appealed to the chart. He was sent off a<rain. and this time returned pale and trembling. They were in a furious rage and said instructions did not matter; maps were maps, and the line on the chart showed the Warner on the port hand.

"What to do! If the protest was heard, the Sailing Committee must have dismissed it at once, and ought to dismiss it as frivolous, and line the Kaiser £5, and the Prince of Wales would have had a disagreeable half-hour with his nephew. "So, I said, 'Oh, don't let us have any inquiry or any fuss, hand them over the cup.' I think they were all relieved. I had won my cup and lost it. The All Highest had" lost the cup, and got it. Well, it was better than an unpleasant episode."