BOARDED BY HUGE SEA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19989, 4 November 1927, Page 8

BOARDED BY HUGE SEA

DARING TRIP IN 22FT. YAWL ATLANTIC NEARLY CROSSED MONTREAL, Oct. 20. Success nearly crowned; the efforts of Mr William Ernest Sinclair, aged 51, and Mr Bichard Meredith Jackson, 24, in an adventurous voyage on which they started early in June in a 22ft yawl-rigged boat, with the intention of sailing from. London to New York. They reached Alontrcal on the freighter Alcor, having been pickqd up 350 miles off Belle Isle. On September 1 came the dramatic conclusion of their voyage, when a mighty, crashing wave struck their eraft, the Joan, of 4| tons, which was riding to a heavy sea anchor while the captain and mate were resting in. their bunks in the tiny cabin. In the darkness of the night they were thrown violently to the floor; water poured over the vessel; the mainmast and; stays were carried away, and food was hurled all over the place. Not until Sept. 7 was a vessel’s light seen, and. then an attempt to signal with damp flares was made. The signals were seen by the third officer of the Alcor, who ‘had a boat lowered and rescued the two men with nothing but a kitbag containing their valuables. Alessrs. Sinclair and Jackson, when seen here, were able to establish their identity through shipping agents.

The voyage was started towards the end of June from the Erith Yacht Club, Kent. They went north, via Pentland Firth and Iceland, and then set a course for Newfoundland, and were only sixty miles off their estimated position when rescued. Mr Sinclair is a schoolmaster under the London County Council, and Air Jackson is studying law. The former proposes to return to England;, but the latter is going to Toronto, where he has relatives. The Alcor is a Dutch vessel carrying grain.