A PRECARIOUS VOYAGE

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14092, 25 March 1939, Page 5

A PRECARIOUS VOYAGE

IN HOME-BUILT CRAFT THIRTY DAYS TO CROSS TASAIAN. Electm Telegraph—Press Association AUCKLAND, Last Night. Flying a tattered United States ensign, a strange yawl slipped unexpectedly into Auckland Harbour late this afternoon. She came from Sydney and the voyage across the Tasman took 30 days. On board were two very hungry men, one a, Netherlander and the other Swedish by birth, now a naturalised Australian. For the last eight or nine days they had been living on potatoes, fried onions and pancakes made of flour and water. All other supplies were exhausted. The owner is the Netherlander, Mr Frank Dona, and the AustralianSwede is Air Oscar Strom. Each said he had suffered from sickness through their restricted diet, which was relieved only briefly when they put into Spirits Bay and found there a solitary camper, who gave them a loaf of bread and a couple of apples. Both also bore on their legs severe abrasions caused when they were flung about their small craft by heavy weather. That, together with the irritating calms, prevented them from reaching Auckland on the date they had planned, Alarch 8. HOW IT BEGAN. The captain, Air Dona, said the depression caused him to put into realisation a dream he had already cherished and with his brother, Pete, he went to Seattle and began to build a boat. The task took him a year. When his yawl was finally launched in 1935 he named her the Marie, after his mother, and set sail tor Alaska a year ago. The two bro,r.s. Honolulu and sailed to J ahiti, going thence to Samoa, Fiji and finally to Sydney, where they ?l» ay °d three months." On February 22 he set sail for Auckland. "Aleanwhile, ” lie said, “my brother Pete had decided to stay in Sydney, where he found work, so we parted after sailing for more than three years together. So I took on Oscar and here I am, although it r k s £t long to get roun(l that devil a a . ° l ’f'h Cape that 1 began to despair of reaching here." Head winds and calms were the Alane s lot for the whole of the voyage. Good progress was made for the first few days, but then they ran into a storm and were hove-to tor five days, in which time they were taken northward far off their course. Then for three days the Tasman was as peaceful as the Wiatemata and they stayed almost where they were. After that there were more head winds and they lost a greater distance than they gained. AUXILIARY ENGINE NEEDED. Ihe Alarie sighted the New Zealand coast almost a week after he had hoped to be in Auckland. They tiled to sail round- North Cape and were foiled by more head winds and calms. Finally they were forced to use an auxiliary engine with which the Alarie is fitted.

Captain Dona had shipped 44 gallons of petrol when he left Sydney and he had intended to reserve it t l 9 r harbour work, but the rapidly diminishing supplies of fresh food decided him to draw on the engine to get past the Cape. For the last lew days they had rationed water to “fingers” for drinking and to a splash for washing. The Marie is only 34ft. long, with a bream of lift, and draught of 6ft.