“A WONDERFUL TIME”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23885, 12 August 1939, Page 19

“A WONDERFUL TIME”

EIGHTEEN MONTHS’ CRUISING DUNEDIN MAN’S EXPERIENCES (Per United Press Association! WELLINGTON. Aug. 11. “ It has been a wonderful time.” said Mr Robert Finlayson, of Dunedin, who arrived back at Wellington to-day by the Arawa after 18 months’ cruising around the world in yachts. With him was Mr. Gregory Hendren. of Auckland. his shipmate from Auckland to New York in the ketch Vanora by way of the Straits of Magellan. Mr Finlayson said he left / Auckland about May of last year on a cruise to the South Sea Islands with Mr D Wellington’s yacht Seaward, a 34-foot ketch. They went by way of Norfolk Island to the New Hebrides and New Caledonia. There he joined Mrs Marion Rice Hart’s 73-foot steel-hulled ketch Vanora. accompanied it down to Auckland and continued with it through the Straits of Magellan and up the Atlantic to New York. The most interesting portion of the voyage was the passage throught the straits sailing close to the rugged and desolate shores strewn with the bones of shins that had come to grief. It was a graveyard of wrecks, said Mr Finlayson. They saw many on the shores, although they themselves passed through in safety. No mislfops or misadventures marred their voyage. They arrived in New York a little more than a month ago. The Vanora’s crew included Mr Hendron. engineer and captain, and Mr Duncan Matheson. of Auckland, sailing master. He stayed on in New York hoping to return to New Zealand with Admiral Byrd on the Bear of Oakland on the Antarctic expedition he is at present reported to be fitting out to make good America’s claims to portions of the southern continent. He himself had no wish to visit the cold Antarctic, he said, but he was by no means content with so much voyaging. He had no definte plans at present and he was anxious to be off about the seas again.