TWENTIETH CENTURY DRAKE

Taranaki Daily News, 18 October 1927, Page 3

TWENTIETH CENTUR Y DRAKE

POUND THE WORLD -FOR FUN.” After a voyage of 20,000 miles, occupying more than two years, Captain Thomas Drake, better known as the Lone Sea Rover, arrived at Dover Harbour a few' weeks ago in his 35ft craft, the Pilgrim. The Pilgrim is of only eight tons register, lift beam, 3ft Gin. draught, and is fitted with a motor and schooner rigging. Captain Drake, who is a naturalised American. was born at Gravesend, Kent, and was brought up at Fa versham. He intended to take his boat to Faversham and to London, up the east coast of Scotland, around the Orkneys and Shetlands, on to Norway, Holland and Germany, then to the Mediterranean and the Holy Land, through the Suez Canal to the East Indies, finishing up at China and Japan. Then he will cross the Pacific on the way home to Seattle. He sails alone in his boat.

The long voyage from Seattle was begun by Captain Drake in 1925. ‘"mainly for fun.” he said, at Dover. “Aly voyage took me from San Francisco on to Santa Barbara, where I arrived three days after an earthquake which had shaken the district. 1 travelled through the Panama (.anal, passing San Pedro, Catalania and San Diego, which completed the first 4000 miles. A thousand miles further I cane to the Galapago Islands, after which I visited tne coast of Chile.

“I boxed the compass to found the Horn, but had to return to the port of Uta, Colombia, to rid the bottom of the Pilgrim of barnacles. Then 1 went back lo the Panama, and sailed to the West Indies, where I loaded up a large collection of curios, sailed along the coast of Florida, then to New York and Nova Scotia. Returning to New York I crossed to the Bermuda islands, and then on to the Island of Tobago, on to Trinidad and Port of Spain.

“Early this year I arrived at San Fernando, and theia went on to a place called Brighton, where I lauded to examine a natural pitch lake. Eventually I crossed the Atlantic to Laud’s End. reaching there 51 days after Laving Charleston”