A LONE VOYAGER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24254, 23 March 1940, Page 4

A LONE VOYAGER

AUSTRALIA TO AMERICA "Escape to the Sea." By Fred Rebell. Introduction by Richard Hughes (Murray) lis 6d. i

In the history of navigation there are some remarkable stories of long voyages accomplished in small boats. Shipwrecked sailors have travelled long distances, and there is the classical instance of the voyage made by Captain Bligh of the Bounty and his officers, but since that time some dar-. ing adventurers have performed even more remarkable feats. In 1892 Captain Joshua Solcum sailed a boat of 36 feet round the world. Later, Captain Voss circumnavigated the globe in a 36ft canoe. In recent times the Frenchman Alain Gerbault and Harry Pidgeon, in small boats, rivalled these accomplishments. In 1932 a voyage was carried out by a lone sailor which was the equal of any of these and in some ways was unique. The story of this exploit is told in " Escape to the Sea" by the Latvian who hides his identity under the name of " Fred Rebell."

What particularly distinguished Rebell's voyage is the fact that he was without previous experience of seafaring except as a stoker, and that is no experience at all for a venture in an 18-footer on the open sea. Fred Rebell was bitten by the desire for better living conditions after the Great War, and he set out to travel. He had no passports, so he adopted the name of Rebell. forged his capers, and made his way to Australia. There he laboured in the bush and as a farmer, but. being crossed in love, he again became unsettled and wanted to go to the United States. He had no money, and. of course, no papers, so he 'set on the crazy idea of sailing an open boat across the Pacific to his goal. He took over 12 months in his leisurely trip, but the marvel is that he accomplished it at all. and one's sense of wonderment is no whit lessened after one has read his story. The author, however, has no sense of wonderment, for he became converted during his voyage to an intensely personal faith in the. Fatherhood of God, and he believes that he was Divinely protected. Indeed, what seemed to be direct answers on several occasions to his prayers in desperate moments left him, in his own mind, no possibility of believing anything else. The narrative i s a straightforward and personal one, told with only those occasional attempts at literary embellishment which mark the unpractised and uneducated writer, and it shows Rebell to have been a remarkable man in more ways than in his achievement as a lone voyager. D. G. B.