ANCIENT MARINER

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 106, 29 January 1935, Page 9

ANCIENT MARINER

Seventy-year-old Seafarer Arrives at Samoa COCKLESHELL ADVENTURE Lone voyages in small craft are becoming increasingly popular among the more adventurous class of yachtsmen, but the latest single-handed sailor will make others look to their laurels. According to reports from Samoa, a seadog of 70 in a 22-foot yawl arrived a month or two ago at the remote island of Gente Hermosa, northward of Samoa, after sailing all the way from New York, by way of the Panama Canal, the Galapagos, the Marquesas, and Pago Pago. It appears that Captain John Dow, a veteran blue-water sailorman in whom the love of the open sea had by no means waned, persuaded his friend Captain John 11. Meyers to accompany him down to the sea again. Although Captain Dow was over 70 years old, he .felt fully able to cope with the worst vicissitudes of a sailor’s life. So they set out. By the time their tiny yawl, the Chance, arrived, at Cristobal to pass through the canal, the two adventurers had ridden out two bad blows, and Captain Meyers was apparently discouraged; at any rate, lie disembarked there, and left Captain Dow to continue his voyage alone, undaunted. That, bold spirit set sail westward for the South Sea Islands, by way of the Galapagos, where Ralph Stock, of the Dream Ship, so nearly wrecked his yacht. But Captain Dow’s navigation was more successful, and in due course lie reached Pago Pago. But it was not without adventure. For when this Ancient Mariner put in to American Samoa, tlie Chance was making water at the rate of 25 gallons an hour, and his stores were reduced to a few dry biscuits and a trilling quantity of water. Once rested, Captain Dow sailed on, after recaulking the leak, to the American island of Gente Hermosa, where lie intends to ride at anchor tor a year or so —what is one little year to a sailor who has seen seventy? . Although a strenuous undertaking for a man of his years, Captain Dow’s voyage is not altogether so reckless or dangerous a task as one might imagine. Such small craft experts as Gerbaulc, Voss, Slocum and Knight—the three first-named all circumnavigators of the globe and extremely experienced singlehanded sailors, and the fourth a yachting authority—concede that a seaworthy fully-decked vessel, even as small as an eighteen-footer, if skilfully handled can defy the worst violence of the sea. There have been amazing open-boat voyages, such as Bligh’s, that of the Australian who two years ago sailed alone in an eighteen-footer from Australia to Los Angeles, and that of the two enthusiasts who actually rowed across the Atlantic. Voss’s Tilikum, although it was over thirty feet long, was only five in beam, and drew about three feet; it was an old Red Indian war canoe, hollowed from a single tree. And only last winter a certain adventurer arrived in Wellington from Lyttelton iu a small lifeboat that waterside criticism likened to Noah’s Ark. The seas are no playground for fools, but it has been proved beyond doubt that they are a reasonably safe one for experienced yachtsmen. And while public attention is caught by any spectacular feat of yachting, entirely unnoticed a vast number of quite tiny fishing vessels daily risk the hazards of the sea in the course of their daily work.