BRIDAL TRIP THAT COST £250,000.

Otago Witness, Issue 3596, 13 February 1923, Page 29

BRIDAL TRIP THAT COST £250,000.

ADVENTUROUS WORLD TOUR IN TINY YACHT. A 98ft motor yacht, Speejacks, the smallest vessel to travel round the globe, arrived at New York in December after a 16 months’ cruise filled with adventure, in which 40,000 miles were logged. The vessel was welcomed by a terrific din of ship and factory sirens, and was escorted by a fleet of all sorts of craft. Speejacks was built by Mr Albert Y. Gowan, of Chicago, at a cost of £50.000, for a world honeymoon trip with his bride, an enthusiastic yachtswoman; and the crew, when the yacht started from New York on August 21, 1921, consisted mostly of rich friends of the couple. They first headed down coast to the Panama Canal, after passing through which the Speejacks was towed most of the 4500 miles to Tahiti by the steamship Eastern Queen. At this lovely South Sea isle three of the party gave up the adventure, having had enough. Native crews were taken on for the ran to Samoa and Australia. Nearing New Caledonia, the French penal settlement, the yacht, tvas Mown miles off her course by a hurricane, and at the Samoan Islands ran on a reef, damaging her propellor. The next places touched at wore Humboldt Bay. Java. Singapore, and Sumatra. After being d*iven back by a hurricane the vessel did the 3000-mile trip across the Indian Ocean from Batavia to the Seychelles. Passage of the Red Sea —where another of tile party dropped out—and a tour of Europe in an automobile were further interesting features of the trip. Rejoining the Speejacks at Gibraltar, Mr and Mrs Gowan went home to America by way of the Cape Verde Islands, Porto Kico, and Florida. Throughout the voyage Mrs Gowan took her regular turn at. the wheel, except in the Red Sea, where the heat overcame her. Tt is said the trip cost £250.000, the petrol bill alone exceeding £20,000.