STRANGE CRAFT

Hokitika Guardian, 30 August 1933, Page 6

STRANGE CRAFT

GOSPEL SHIP IN CONSTRUCTION {Per Press Association — Copyright.) AUCKLAND’, August 30. One of. the strangest craft an amateur boat builder has ever planned is nearing completion oh tlie banks of tlie •Wade River. She is the gospel ship, Ysabel, forty-one feet long and rigged as, ,a . barquentine. She is being constructed out of woods obtained in tlie bush, cut and shaped with an axe, saw, and plane, and a chisel made out of an old file.

the builder, L. Beavis, measured everything by the span of bis fingers. Keeping the Bible handy while lie worked Beavis lias written or cut onevery timber in the craft a text from the Gospel, and' the figurehead represent an angel holding open a Bible. In rigging out the yacht lie intends to follow the plan of the original Ysabel, which before she became an Island trader, was with the Alelanesian Alission ship, Southern Cross. For auxiliary power lie intends to instal handpropelling-gear-of his own design. He will sail the craft singlehanded. He nroposes to compete in the trans-Tasman race and then make bis way. to Palestine,, to witness the fulfilment of. Biblical prophecies, which he believes to be* impending.