THE WISH-BONE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23918, 20 September 1939, Page 9

THE WISH-BONE

START FOR NEW. ZEALAND FAMILY IN 35-FOOT BOAT (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON,-Aug. 24. A few minutes before high tide at Dell quay, Chichester, oh the after-. noon of August 17, Mr George Pope, a Bradford electrician, cast off his 35ft motor launch, the Wish-Bone, on the start of his voyage with his wife, his mother-in-law, and three little children to New Zealand. As he left the jetty a few of the friends he has made during the time he has been lying at his i oorings bade him God speed. He has on board food and supplies for several months, but whether he is going eastwards through the Suez Canal or westwards through the Panama Canal he had not made up his mind. While talking of his long leg of 2000 miles to the Marquesas in the middle of the Southern Pacific, and of the South Atlantic crossing he told the Hampshire Telegraph representative that he proposes to sleep during the day while his wife holds the boat on her course, rousing him when necessary. He anticipates a speed of six or seven knots, including the ocean stream that will help him across the first big stride. “There is no point in hurrying,” he said. “We have the provisions and the time, and the worst part of the whole journey will be the Channel if it is rough. It’s the short seas that are the worst.” Project Opposed Opposition to the project was made by Councillor R. G. Keates, who said he did not consider the boat safe for such a journey. He Was worried for the sake of the children, and declared that the open cockpit would get flooded in a rough sea. He himself would not go down the harbour in her on a tough day. Neither he nor the Mayor could find means of preventing the journey. Mr Pope, who has recently been working at Cardington E.A.F. Station as a storeman, hopes to get work in New Zealand as an electrical wireman, at which he says he can make more money.