CALL OF THE SEA

Taranaki Daily News, 19 September 1931, Page 2

CALL OF THE SEA

GERBAULT’S WANDERINGS. BUILDING SECOND FIRECREST. An interesting visitor to London in July was Alain Gerbault—who, well known as a French lawn tennis player, turned his back on Europe and. its effete civilisation, and became better known as the lone wanderer of distant seas in his yacht Firecrest. Gerbault was in Australian waters during his long, haphazard cruise. This cruise ended in July, 1929, and since then he has been making plans for a new adventure, superintending the building of a new Fireerest, playing a little tennis, and writing and publishing a book on his first voyage, engaging in aviation, and generally, in one way and another, says the London correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald, fretting away the time until he is ready for a new voyage to distant lands. The old Firecrest is now a museum piece—revered, by the French nation as patriotically as its former owner is lauded. For Gerbault is a national hero in his country—a lion at the social gatherings he attends, met by Mayors and town councils with troops and bands, and worshipped by school children. But shortly he will forsake all this adulation, as he did the good times he had as an international tennis player. The Firecrest 11. is nearly ready. She has been launched at Sartrouville, near Paris —a ten-ton sloop, slightly smaller than the old Firecrest. “She has been made with all the care of a man who loves the sea,” Gerbault told a London friend. “The workmen refused to make any profit. She was handed over to me at cost price—about £4500. She is full of ideas. I searched the world, for a suitable teak, and found a Burmese teak, which answered my purpose. “The mast is four feet shorter than the one on Firecrest I. I decided to have the luxury of electric light. There will be a tiny propeller in front of the 'boat; and another innovation is that every piece of steel is rustless —even the steel wires and ropes. What a little marvel sho is!” Gerbault’s last voyage lasted six years. It was made as the result of a sudden impulse, which resulted in the purchase of an English cutter, and the first stage of the home journey was a 142 days’ passage across the Atlantic. That voyage was begun and continued without definite object. Gerbault became a seanomad because he liked the experience. The new voyage will be undertaken with a set purpose. Gerbault says he wants to settle down —on a South Sea Island! He has in mind, the purchase of such an island, if possible, one which has never felt the effects of white civilisation. Ho hopes to depart in September from Le Havre, but if he is delayed a month or two he will sail from a Mediterranean port, where the weather will be better than on the northern coast.