Trouble With Jeep

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 33, 15 December 1950, Page 3

Trouble With Jeep

Considering all the trouble that has been created by the seagoing jeep which set out on a world tour some months ago, the Portuguese and others have been very considerate in answering SOS calls and conducting searches. It is a curious fact that under certain conditions a private individual can still set sail around the world in almost anything. The Atlantic has been rowed in a dinghy, sailed in craft no better suited for the task than an Idle Along. A canoe has sailed round the world, and small collapsible boats scarcely 10 feet in length have set forth similarly. An effort was made to sail the Atlantic in a barrel totally enclosed. .It was made of heavy oak staves and equipped with a keel. The Pacific has been crossed in a Chinese junk, and one young apprentice who deserted from the barque C. B. Pederson did so in the captain’s bathtub. On the 440th anniversary of the first crossing of the Atlantic by Columbus, in a vessel half the size of a Fairmile, the director of the Marine Museum in Madrid planned to sail in his tracks in a vessel the exact replica of the Santa Maria. He intended to carry no modern charts or navigational instruments. Even though this fellow knew where he was going, the journey cannot be considered by any means simple, despite the fact that by regulations enacted since the days of Columbus he was compelled to carry a radio set. Shorter trips such as the English Channel have been made in rowing eights, in water boots, and, of course, by swimming. Even our own Cook Strait, one of the ' most treacherous bits of water in the world, has been crossed in a small dinghy; on one occasion by General Freyberg.