BOOK NAVIGATION

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 362, 25 October 1932, Page 7

BOOK NAVIGATION

ENGLISHMEN VOYAGE TO SOUTII SEA ISLANDS IN YACHT. ADVEiNTUROUS TRIP. Aceording to a young Englishman, Mr. Sidncy howard, it is not necessary to have a maritime knowledge or experience before cruising in a 37foot yacht from Southampton to the South Seas. One requires only a hook on navigation, charts, instruments, and common sense. Mr. Howard, who was a through passenger in the Makura this week, having joined the ship at Tahiti, said that he and another Englishman, Mr. J. W. Johnstone, had proved this assertion. Leaving England in July, 1931, in the yacht Pacifie Morn, they reached Tahiti a year later. Though he admitted having had little previous experience of the sea, Mr. Howard said he soon "picked it up." He bought a hook on navigation in Southampton and learned as he went. "I took observations with the boolc in one hand and a sextant in the other," he said. "Our wind charts helped a lot. We struck bad weather in the Channel and the Bay of Biscay, but from then on our trouble was not too much wind, but not enough. Once we were becalmed for days." Describing the trip, Mr. Howard said that he and Mr. Johnstone first had a good look at Spain. Then they journeyed on to Morocco, th'ence to the Canary Islands and the Cape Verde Islands. The Atlantic crossing of 2100 miles took 20 days, the yacht being bowled along by the north-east trade wind to the Barbadoes. After passing through the Panama Canal, Messrs. Howard and Johnstone set sail on a 400-mile "leg" to the Marquesas Islands, which they reached after 45 days. They arrived at Tahiti in time for the French national festival. They then parted company, Mr. Johnstone returning to England. Mr. Howard sold the yacht to an Argentinian, who, with a Frenchman and an American, is sailing it toward Java. I last heard of them at Pago Pago," observed Mr. Howard.