HAZARDOUS TRIP

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26290, 23 October 1946, Page 8

HAZARDOUS TRIP

ENGLISH GIRL’S JOURNEY EFFORT TO JOIN FIANCE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 22. Determined to reach New Zealand and join her fiance, an English girl adopted desperate measures by becoming a passenger on a converted navy Fairmile launch destined for Australia. The vessel provided cramped quarters for 32 people as far as Malta and 40 from Malta to Port Said, (where the trip was abandoned. • The girl is Miss Joan Bristow, who arrived in Wellington to-day in the Rangitata. and who expects to live in Masterton. An Australian in the R.A.F. bought the Fairmile from the Admiralty when he decided to provide his own transport home after being demobilised, and he charged passengers £2OO each to cover the cost of the long voyage. A young Australian merchant navy man acted as captain and navigator, and Mr J. Cole, of Wellington, who, as far as is known, is still in Port Said, was among the crew. Miss Bristow said various reasons had been given for abandoning the trip, but she thought the difficulty of carrying sufficient fuel for the Indian Ocean crossing was the main one. There would have had to be 50 drums of high octane petrol as deck cargo, which in hot weather would have been dangerous. The owner decided to discontinue the plan as the result of a warning by the British Consul. Miss Bristow and two other women managed to arrange passages in the Rangitata after a week in Port Said, and did not know what happened to the rest of the passengers.