ASHORE OFF BROOKLYN

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 85, 4 January 1935, Page 9

ASHORE OFF BROOKLYN

Mr. A. Villiers’s Vessel

New York, January 2.

A 60-mile north-west gale blew the ship Joseph Conrad on the rocks 800 ft. from the Brooklyn shore early to-day. Two passengers and two members of the crew were rescued by the police, leaving Rwo other members of the. crew aboard. The latter refused to leave the ship in the absence of the master, Air. Alan Villiers, who was ashore. The vessel sprank a leak when she was dashed on to the rocks, but she is in no danger in shallow water.

The Joseph Coiiyad is following . the route of Captain Cook, who nearly 200 years ago circumnavigated the globe in the Endeavour, and this brave imitation of a famous voyage is a romantic tribute to the great man. When Captain Cook sailed on his 370ton Endeavour his ship was not a small one for its day. But the Joseph Conrad. 203 tons, could be packed on board one of the ocean liners it has passed on its way to America and almost lost. Though small, she is a tall ship with the three masts and the square rigged sails of a frigate.

Alan Villiers is her Australian captain, and he has a crew of 15 and 15 apprentices to sail with him round Cape Horn, which happily she may round in the summer; then on to Tahiti, the islands of tlie South Seas, and so round Australia. When the news of the venture was made known, hundreds of applications to join came from all over the world, hopeful girls as well as boys longing to go. Who can wonder? The voyagers, if their ship is successfully refloated, will pass through the tropics to the ice-bound shores of South America; they will sight the glaciers that Magellan saw. The sails that were filled with the gales of the Horn will droop in the soft airs of Tahiti, where Captain Cook died. Homeward bound, they will glide over the turquoise waters of the Coral Sea, and pass the pearlers at Thursday Island as they steer for the Torres Strait on the way to the East Indies. Flying-fish will plav about their bows; they will sight £.ea-snakes, if not the sea serpent, and spouting whales. They will navigate the Strait of Lombak, and see the Bali and the volcanoes on Java. They may see Krakatoa.