The Long Voyage is Over

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22670, 6 March 1937, Page 13 (Supplement)

The Long Voyage is Over

Joseph Conrad Reaches New York NOT ONE CASUALTY AMONG CREW Damfeged on deck and aloft by the terrific battering she received east of Cape Horn, the full-rigged ship, Joseph Conrad, sailed lazily up the South American coast, passed wide of the West Indian hurricane belt and picked up the Ambrose lightship on the 106 th day out from Tahiti. The memorable voyage was over—Alan Villiers and hit ship had circumnavigated the globe. A rich American owns the Joseph Conrad now. She has a diesel engine below her decks and her cabins are air>.cooled. Alan Villiers is ashore with another hazardous occupation on his hands—writing « book. By ALAN VILLIERS—NO VII. (Copyright—All Rights Reserved) WE saw nothing of the Horn, but the next day ■ the sun shone and we saw Staten Island. I stood onwards then to pass between the Falkland Islands and the Patagonian coast, but the windthat old enemy—would not permit me to do that, nnd I had to cross the Burdwood Bank and make what way I could toward the north-east.

On tlie bank we saw a grounded ice-island, but 1 had a head wind and made 110 investigations. That is work for powered vessels; al! I cared about ice was to avoid it by as great a margin as possible.

lliht iee-islaucl must have been at least 15 miles long, and it had cliffs'and j>eaks like land. It had broken off and -was drifting round. 1 stood 011 warily coward the southeast trades; but I d been to 57 south to round the Horn and did not find the trade before IS south: 1 had nearly 40 degrees "of difficult latitude to make. Off the Plate we had a gale—hard enough, but a baby after Cape Horn. V. heave-to, for it was head wind, and I did not trust my headgear. After that I stood toward Trinidad—not the Trinidad with the bitumen, but the less-known uninhabited island far out from the coast of Brazil.

there is supposed to be some pirated' gold there, and it has often been searched for; but gold was—well, not a popular subject with me. I'd 210 time to waste 011 Trinidad. As it was, I knew we should be fortunate to make New York in anything under 10.5 days, and I had galley-fuel and fresh water for not-more than 10 days over that. I had to go on. Foreyard Sprung 1 We were 75 days out before we crossed the Line, but the Doldrums were kind. I shaped a course then toward Bermuda, roughly, meaning to give the hurricane zone of the West Indies as wide a berth as possible (it was now September, and that is a bad month in the neighbourhood of the Carribeanh We had damage enough. I'd come from 2000 miles on the wrong side of Cape Horn without a fore-topgallant mast, and now tho foreyard was also discovered sprung. An old ship with masts and yards of wood must suffer on a long, hard voyage; but the ship herself was all right. However, she was beginning to need an overhaul, that was plain enough; and she needed some new yards. The old wooden ships used to carry a whole spare mast and many and then their masters often had the carpenters ashore looking for good wood for spars. We had been fortunate to Sail the long road with so few accidents. Nothing had come down from aloft; we'd saved everything. I Iwid a new fore-topmast made, to be sent aloft when the chance came, but that was a job for port. I had no spar long*enough to mako a new foreyard.

We fished the sprung rpar as stoutly as possible and hoped f»»r the best.

We were over three months at sea before we saw our first ship, and that was a rum-runner —a low motor vessel, well-laden with Barbados rum, though were he was taking it 1 don't know. J didn't ask. One doesn't ask rum-runners things like that. They came close and seemed nice men. Indeed, they gave us some rum. Balmy Days We saw this vessel somewhere between Barbados and Bermuda, but he wasn't going to Bermuda. I asked him to report me, to send word to Lloyds that he'd spoken me all well. 95 days out from Tahiti towards New York; but I knew he wouldn't. However, within a day or two an obliging German motor-ship, the Palatia, of Hamburg, promised to report me, and I knew.then that word of our safe rounding of the Horn would go to England—two months after we had come around. I stood on leisurely through the north-east trade toward New York, and the days were balmy. This was the best part of the voyage. We caught dolphins, sharks, bonita;- flying-fish flew oil board. By day all hands, stripped to the waist and brown as Polynesians, worked to have the ship in first-class order to come into port (and this is a lot of work), Snd by night slept the sleep of tired youth —such of them, of course, as were not required for the wheel and look-out Happy Ending We wandered slowly the more .slowly as the trade quietened, and 100 days out were within 150 miles of Bermuda. From there to New York was about 600 miles, but it was cfllm, and 1 did not know how longywe might bo making it. Sometimes the last part of a voyage comes mighty hard. , "Bad- beginning, good end," I had solaced myself when we lolled around in the channel between Tahiti and Moorea fit our setting out. Well, here we were near the end. What was it to be? It was, as a matter of fact, pretty good. We came right on to New York

without further difficulty, and after a passage of 106 days direct from Tahiti, picked up the Ambrose lightship, ami had the pilot 011 board. The wind was fair and freshening, with rain. It was a fresh October day. and 1 sailed in, anchoring at the quarantine station by night, off Staten Island, with the Hay Ridge shore where we had been aground not far to leeward. It rained and blew at the anchorage, and 1 shifted to a safe berth up the harbour as quickly as 1 could. One hundred and six days! 1 had hoped for less, once; but it was not so bad. Voyage is Over For the last 10,000 miles the little ship had been handicapped. 1 came iti with no fore top-gallant mast, with the jibboom and the foreyard sprung, and with the fore-topmast, head seriously weakened. But the little ship had made the circumnavigation of the globe successfully and with safety, and she had hurt nobody. We read in a paper that a super liner bound across the Atlantic, had thrown an old man across her decks and killed him. The voyage was over then. 1 had sailed from New York to New York by way of Good Hope and the Horn. I had made the circumnavigation. It had been costly, worrying and sometimes difficult —but through everything it had always been very much worth while, i laid the ship up in the Tebo'a basin 011 the Brooklyn waterfront, in Now York Harbour, and sent the crew home. Epilogue The Joseph Conrad was sold in New York to a rich young American who proposed to convert tlie vessel into an auxiliary yacht. He kept her rigged as she was and maintained the name, but below fitted the vessel with a large diesel engine, generating plants, refrigerators, ice-making and conditioning plant, and comfortable cabins. His plan was to use her for cruising to the West Indies and perhaps to the South Seas. Mr. \ iliiers is living ashore in New York engaged upon a new book.