ISLANDS CRUISE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23228, 23 December 1938, Page 9

ISLANDS CRUISE

GROUP OF SCIENTISTS VOYAGE TO BASS STRAIT PLANS OF EXPLORERS [from our own correspondent] MELBOURNE, Dec. 15 Uninhabited islands in Bass Strait will bo visited next month by the McCoy Society, a group of scientists from Melbourne University, who will voyage in the former .Grand Bank's fishing schooner Henrietta (99 tons). The Henrietta, which was sailed from Gloucester, United States, to Melbourne *: through the Straits of Magellan, to enable the owner-captain, Mr. Bailey Sawyer, and his wife to, see the Mel- "> bourne Cup, has been moored at South Wharf for the past two months. On the Bass Strait cruise Mr. Sawyer will command the schooner, whicji will bo manned by a portion of his regular crew. The scientists will act as seamen I to niako up the schooner's complement. The scientists will explore late islands of the Furneaux Group, * which stretch in an arc from northeast Tasmania toward Wilson's Promontory, the southernmost point of Victoria. The group has been chosen because on many of the islands there are no rabbits. As a result the vegetation is in a natural state, which indicates that the islands have not been settled by man. The expedition will leave Melbourne on January 9 and be absent three weeks. The members of the party will live on board the schooner. The area is dotted with treacherous reefs and shoals, and the anchorages are described in most nautical handbooks as "difficult." This will be the first scientific cruise in Australian waters by an American fishing schooner. More ambitious cruises are to follow, and Mr. Sawyer said that his plans to return soon to the United States had been completely changed. After the Bass Strait cruise the Henrietta will be sailed to the Great Barrier Reef for scientific work. That will be followed by the circumnavigation of the ;j, v Continent—probably the first such voyage undertaken by a sailing vessel for } research purposes since the days of Matthew Flinders. Then Mr. Sawyer will prepare for his most ambitious scientific cruise. Using * Melbourne as a base he will go south ■ into Antarctic waters to explore some " of the most desolate islands in, the world—Kerguelen Island, Macquarie Island, the Judge and Clerk, thei Bishop and Clerk, and Emerald Island. Mr. "Sawyer has done much important scientific'work in Baffin Land and Labrador.