ADVENTUROUS CRUISE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21861, 25 July 1934, Page 12

ADVENTUROUS CRUISE

ONE MAN IN BOAT ROUGH TRIP UP COAST rBY TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION'] WELLINGTON, Tuesday After an adventurous trip, battling all tho way with rough weather, a small boat of unusual rie, manned by one man, arrived at Wellington from the South this afternoon. The boat was sailed by Mr. E. S. Gerard, a New Zealander and an Oxford blue, who was a member of the crew of the ketch Waterlily, which was manned by sixChrist's College old boys and was wrecked during a cruise of the Pacific last year.

.After tho Waterlily cruise, • Mr. Gerard purchased an 18-foot ship's lifeboat. A baker's van was converted into a. rough cabiu and tho forward part of the vessel was decked over. Iu this boat, christened the Matangi, Mr. Gerard left .Rcdcliffs on Wednesday. On Friday an easterly wind made him run into Port Levy.

The wind changed to the west at dusk on Saturday and he put out again to run into hail, rain and wind that drove the Matangi hissing through the water so fast that she was in danger of broaching to. " I was wet through, there was a foot of water seething from end to end of the cabin and the sea seemed to have gone mad," Mr. Gerard said to-night, in the course of an account of his adventure.

After a two days' battle with the gale the tiny vessel made the heads this morning and finally reached a snug anchorage in the boat'harbour.